Central York policy committee refines draft suicide-prevention policy, flags definition and referral wording

Central York policy committee members spent their meeting continuing page-by-page work on a draft suicide awareness, prevention and response policy (policy 8-19), focusing on definitions, notification wording and referral procedures. Moderator (Speaker 1) opened the session and said the committee would resume the definitions it left off at during the prior meeting.

Board members expressed concern that several definitions and phrases in the draft were unclear. Speaker 3 objected to repeated 'and/or' constructions for notifying parties and asked whether the policy intended to allow notifying law enforcement but not a district team in some situations. "You can't have 'and/or'," Speaker 3 said, urging clearer, more consistent wording on who must be informed. District staff (Speaker 4) and committee members agreed the language should be simplified in many places to avoid ambiguity.

The committee debated whether the draft should name a 'team' or a 'coordinator' in specific paragraphs. Members said the text had been edited in places to replace 'team' with 'coordinator' and that the draft should make clear when a single suicide…