About Working Minds

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Vision

Our vision is of a community of workplaces eliminating the devastating impact of suicide at work and beyond.

Mission

To realize this vision, Working Minds provides tools and networks to workplaces to assist with suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention.  Because the majority of people who complete suicide are of working age, and because workplaces, like schools, are an appropriate and effective venue for addressing the public health issue,Working Minds seeks to engage workplace communities with three strategies:

  1. Establishing a Workplace Suicide Prevention Network: Creating a networking infrastructure that aligns workplaces with suicide prevention, intervention and postvention resources.
  2. Providing State of the Art Training: Increasing suicide prevention capacity in workplaces by offering educational workshops, webinars, and skill building training, including Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) suicide prevention “gatekeeper training.” 
  3. Changing the Culture of Suicide Prevention in the Workplace: Through social marketing campaigns (media strategies designed to increase awareness and change attitudes), Working Minds seeks to let people know:  suicide affects everyone and we have a shared responsibility to prevent it; it is courageous to ask for help; you (an individual in crisis, a supervisor, a workplace) are not alone – lots of resources exist to help you through a suicide crisis.

Values Statement

To accomplish our mission, the Working Minds Program bases its decisions and actions on the following core values and beliefs:

  1. Accountability for Sustaining a Positive Future

    2. Suicide is a public health problem that has affected humanity throughout history and will most likely continue to affect future generations. We therefore hold ourselves accountable for doing whatever we can to provide for a future that continues to need suicide prevention resources, and we hold ourselves accountable not only to our current affiliates, and to their communities, but to the generations who come after us. We look for strategies that address underlying root causes, not just symptoms, and we will create financial strategies toward sustainability, not just survival. In short, all components of the Working Minds program are designed to create a lasting impact.

  2. Evidence Based Practices

    3. Working Minds values the science and the stories of suicide prevention.  In order to be most effective, Working Minds is built on a strong foundation of proven strategies and the experiences of people at the grassroots.  For this reason we look to the following resources to guide us in program development:

    • Scientific literature
    • Best practices inventories
    • The wisdom of our affiliates

  3. Interconnected Approaches

    4. Working Minds seeks to bridge the nonprofit, for profit, and government sectors in addressing change. Working Minds encourages workplaces and mental health organizations to work together, to collaborate in order to effect greater change. Where possible, we build on the strengths of other programs, rather than re-invent  proven procedures. We implement whichever strategies that provide the most positive impact for the most number of people.

  4. Innovative and Optimistic Practicality

    5. Working Minds seeks creative solutions to entrenched problems.  Our stakeholders become engaged when they believe change is possible, and that their individual actions can bring about that change.  Working Minds offers practical tools that are easily understood and adopted by our affiliates.  Working Minds is innovative, advancing the mental health field with what is possible rather than what has always been done. Our positive messages that change can happen inspires hope and engages people in meaningful ways.

    Bios

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    Sally Spencer-Thomas, Psy.D.
    Dr. Sally Spencer-Thomas is the Executive Director of the Carson J Spencer Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to “Sustaining a Passion for Life” through innovative suicide prevention programs targeting the working aged population, social enterprise funding mental health initiatives and support for emerging leaders and entrepreneurs. Trained as a clinical psychologist, Dr. Spencer-Thomas has served as a student life administrator at Regis University since 1995. Since then she has also co-authored two books on violence prevention and assisted with workplace violence prevention training nationally. Her professional interest in suicide turned personal when her younger brother took his own life in 2004. She has presented on the topic of suicide to several national and international audiences, including presentations for the FBI, the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, the National Association of School Personnel Administrators, and the American Association of Suicidology. She serves on the board of the Suicide Prevention Coalition of Colorado and the Steering Committee for the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (national). Dr. Spencer-Thomas has been the project director for suicide prevention grants from both Colorado’s Office of Suicide Prevention and the federal government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (Garrett Lee Smith Campus Suicide Prevention Grant).

    A married mother of three, Dr. Spencer-Thomas lives in greater Denver, Colorado, where she is an avid marathoner.