ABSTRACT
Every time a person dies by suicide, 6 to 10 loved ones are bereaved (Jordan & McMenamy, 2004). Each year, there are 180,000 to 300,000 newly bereaved suicide survivors (Mitchell, Kim, Prigerson, & Mortimer, 2005) and 1.1% of the population loses an immediate or extended family member to suicide (Crosby & Sacks, 2002). Further, each year, 1.2% of
adolescents have a suicide death in their family (Cerel & Roberts, 2005), and 7,000 to 12,000 children in the United States lose a parent to suicide (Cerel, Jordan, & Duberstein, 2008). Suicide often is a devastating experience for family members who are left behind. Unfortunately, only about 10,000 survivors in the United States receive postvention efforts each year (Andriessen, 2009).
