Introduction

Suicide impacts thousands of parents every year; secondarily affected are between 10,000 and 20,000 bereaved children and thousands of children exposed to a parent’s suicide attempt (Pfeffer, Karus, Siegel, & Jiang, 2000). For every person who dies by suicide, there are at least six people significantly touched by that death (Pompili, M., Innamorati, M., Raja, M., Falcone, I., Ducci, G., Angeletti, G., Lester, D., Girardi, P., Tatarelli, R., De Pisa, E. 2008). Among adults ages 25–44, the group most likely to have children at home, suicide is the fourth leading cause of death (Heron, 2012).