Structured Tools. Human Judgment. Clearer Next Steps.
The Skills That Matter Scenario Analysis Suite is a secure, guided workspace for organizing information related to suicide screening, structured assessment, formulation, safety planning, and means safety.
The suite brings several commonly used workflows into one coordinated environment. It is designed to help approved users ask required questions consistently, recognize missing information, document findings clearly, and connect assessment information with appropriate action.
It is not an automated suicide-risk calculator. It does not predict what a person will do, determine that someone is safe, replace professional judgment, or make decisions that belong to a qualified and authorized human responder.
Access to the suite is restricted. Individuals must request access, receive approval from Skills That Matter, and complete the required training before the tool is activated.
Request Access
What the Suite Includes
The Scenario Analysis Suite contains six coordinated but distinct workflows.
C-SSRS Recent Screener
A guided workflow for recording responses to the recent Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale screener, including its required timeframes, branching, ideation categories, and suicidal-behavior inquiry.
The screener can help identify when further assessment or an established response pathway may be needed. It does not provide a complete suicide-risk formulation or independently determine disposition.
Immediate Safety Check and DICB Assessment
This workflow begins with an immediate safety check and then organizes information using the Four Core Components of Suicide Assessment:
- Desire
- Intent
- Capability
- Buffers
The framework supports a structured, conversational understanding of what may be pulling a person toward suicide, what may make action possible, what may interrupt that pathway, and how those factors are interacting in the current situation.
DICB does not produce a numerical score or an automatic imminent-risk determination.
Full C-SSRS and Risk/Protective Factors
The Full C-SSRS workflow supports more detailed documentation of lifetime and recent suicidal ideation, ideation intensity, suicidal behavior, nonsuicidal self-injury, actual or potential lethality, and relevant risk and protective factors.
The presence or number of risk and protective factors is not converted into a predictive score. Findings must be interpreted within the person’s current circumstances, history, access, supports, and available interventions.
SAMHSA SAFE-T
The SAFE-T workflow supports the five-step Suicide Assessment Five-Step Evaluation and Triage framework:
- Identify risk factors.
- Identify protective factors.
- Conduct suicide inquiry.
- Determine risk level and intervention.
- Document the assessment and response.
Where a manual determination is required, that decision must be made by an appropriately trained and authorized person. The software does not independently select a clinical risk level or disposition.
Stanley-Brown Safety Planning
The safety-planning workflow helps approved users organize a collaborative, practical sequence for responding to a suicidal crisis.
It addresses:
- Warning signs
- Internal coping strategies
- People and places that can provide distraction
- People who can provide direct support
- Professional and crisis resources
- Steps for making the environment safer
A safety plan is not a promise not to attempt suicide, a substitute for treatment, or evidence that a person is safe. It must be specific, accessible, realistic, and connected to follow-up.
Means-Safety Action Log
The means-safety workflow helps users document conversations and agreed actions related to firearms, medications, and other relevant means.
Each identified concern can be connected to:
- Current access
- The specific safety concern
- An agreed action
- The person or role responsible
- A target timeframe
- Current completion status
- A method of verification
- Remaining access or unresolved concerns
- Follow-up responsibility
The purpose is to support collaborative efforts that create time and distance during a period of suicide concern. A planned action should not be treated as completed or verified until its actual status is known.
One Person, Several Workflows
The suite is designed to reduce unnecessary duplication while preserving the purpose of each individual tool.
Information may be carried forward or displayed across workflows, but the tools are not blended into a single score. A screening result, a DICB formulation, a SAFE-T determination, a completed safety plan, and a means-safety action each answer different questions.
The suite may also identify potential discrepancies or incomplete documentation, such as:
- Different ideation or behavior findings across assessments
- A positive screening result without a documented response
- A manual determination without an accompanying rationale
- Protective factors that have not been tested for current availability
- A safety plan that refers to means safety without a specific action
- An action marked as planned but not completed or verified
- A significant concern without an identified handoff or follow-up owner
These prompts are intended to encourage review. They do not resolve discrepancies automatically or substitute software logic for human clarification and judgment.
Who May Request Access?
The Scenario Analysis Suite may be appropriate for individuals working within behavioral health, healthcare, crisis services, education, social services, corrections, community programs, peer support, research, or other settings where suicide-related concerns may be identified or addressed.
Applicants do not need to hold the same professional title or license. However, every applicant must have a legitimate role-based reason for requesting access and must be able to identify the setting, responsibilities, supervision, and protocols that govern their use of the tool.
Depending on the applicant’s role, authorized use may be limited to activities such as:
- Recognizing a concern and escalating it
- Administering an approved screener
- Recording responses and activating an established protocol
- Contributing information to a broader assessment
- Conducting a structured assessment under appropriate authority
- Collaborating on safety or means-safety planning
- Making and documenting an authorized professional determination
- Coordinating consultation, handoff, intervention, or follow-up
Access to the complete suite does not mean that a user is authorized to perform every activity represented within it.
Required Training
All applicants must provide evidence of training or education in a related field, or on related tools, or on the tools included in the Scenario Analysis Suite. This could include official Lighthouse Project C-SSRS training, certifications/diplomas/licenses, or other evidence of being actively involved and educated in a related field of work or study.
Additional Training and Organizational Requirements
The Skills That Matter course prepares users to understand the suite. It may not be the only training required for real-world use.
Before using any workflow with an actual person, users are responsible for confirming that they have:
- Completed any official training required for the selected instrument
- Received permission from their employer or organization
- Identified the exact version approved for their setting and population
- Completed appropriate role-specific and supervised practice
- Reviewed their organization’s emergency and escalation procedures
- Identified a consultation or supervisory pathway
- Understood relevant privacy and documentation requirements
- Identified current local crisis and referral resources
- Confirmed that their use complies with applicable law and professional standards
Users must use official forms, definitions, instructions, and training resources where required. The suite should not be used to rename categories, change the meaning of questions, remove required branching, or represent a locally modified workflow as an official version of an instrument.
What the Suite Does Not Do
The Scenario Analysis Suite does not:
- Predict suicide or suicidal behavior
- Determine that a person is safe
- Replace a live conversation
- Replace emergency or medical response
- Replace clinical judgment
- Replace consultation or supervision
- Create a universal suicide-risk score
- Automatically determine imminent risk
- Automatically select a SAFE-T risk level
- Decide treatment or disposition
- Confer professional authority
- Provide official certification in the C-SSRS, SAFE-T, or Stanley-Brown Safety Planning
- Replace an organization’s policies or emergency procedures
- Eliminate the need for follow-up and reassessment
No color, category, total, completed form, safety plan, or software-generated prompt should be treated as proof of safety or as a prediction of future behavior.
Role and Scope Remain Essential
Before using any portion of the suite, users should be able to answer:
- Am I authorized to perform this task in this setting?
- Have I completed the required training?
- Do I understand the official tool and its instructions?
- Do I know what must happen after every possible response?
- Who is available for consultation?
- Who owns the next decision?
- What finding requires me to stop and escalate?
- What emergency pathway applies here?
- Who is responsible for follow-up?
When the answer is unclear, the correct next step is to pause and consult—not to improvise.
Immediate Emergencies Come First
The suite is not intended to delay urgent action.
When a person may have taken action to cause harm, may be experiencing a medical emergency, may be in immediate danger, or cannot remain safe while help is arranged, users must stop the ordinary assessment workflow and follow the applicable emergency procedure.
Completing every field is never more important than responding to an immediate safety or medical concern.
Privacy and Appropriate Information Use
Users are responsible for following all applicable privacy, confidentiality, recordkeeping, safeguarding, and information-sharing requirements.
The suite should be used only in approved environments and for authorized purposes. Information should be limited to what is necessary for assessment, intervention, handoff, documentation, and follow-up.
Training and demonstration accounts should use fictional or appropriately deidentified information. Users should not enter personally identifying information into a training environment.
Any printed, downloaded, or exported record creates an additional copy that must be handled and protected appropriately.
Access Is Individual and Restricted
Access is issued to an approved individual account. Login information may not be shared with coworkers, supervisors, students, volunteers, or other individuals.
Users may not copy, reproduce, redistribute, publish, resell, reverse engineer, or provide unauthorized access to the suite or its materials.
Skills That Matter may limit, suspend, or revoke access when:
- An account is shared
- The suite is used outside the approved role or setting
- Required training is incomplete
- Information provided during the application process is inaccurate
- The user attempts to copy or distribute protected materials
- The suite is used in an unsafe, unlawful, or unauthorized manner
- Continued access creates a security, privacy, or implementation concern
How Access Works
1. Submit an Access Request
Complete the request form below. You will be asked about your role, organization or setting, intended use, relevant training, supervision, and the workflows you expect to use.
2. Application Review
Skills That Matter will review the request to determine whether the suite is appropriate for the applicant’s stated role and setting.
Approval is not automatic. We may request clarification or limit access when the proposed use is outside the suite’s intended purpose.
3. Conditional Approval
Approved applicants will receive instructions for creating or activating their Skills That Matter account and enrolling in the required Structured Suicide Assessment course.
Conditional approval does not yet permit access to the suite.
4. Complete Required Training
The applicant must complete every required course component and satisfy the course’s assessment and applied-response standards.
5. Review and Accept the User Agreement
Before first access, the approved user must review and accept the Scenario Analysis Suite User Agreement and acknowledge the tool’s role, scope, privacy, training, and use limitations.
6. Suite Access Is Activated
Once all requirements have been verified, access will be activated for the approved account.
The permissions attached to an account may be limited by role, setting, training, or other conditions identified during review.
Request Access
The Scenario Analysis Suite is available by application only.
Please provide complete and accurate information in the form above. Your responses help Skills That Matter understand how you intend to use the suite and whether the required workflows are appropriate for your role.
Submitting the form does not guarantee approval. Do not submit confidential client, patient, student, employee, or service-user information.
Questions About the Suite?
For questions about access, training requirements, organizational implementation, or whether the suite is appropriate for your setting, contact Skills That Matter.
Need Help Now?
The Skills That Matter Scenario Analysis Suite is a professional workflow resource. It is not a crisis service, personal self-assessment, or emergency-response system.
If you or someone else may be in immediate danger, has taken action that may have caused harm, or may be experiencing a life-threatening medical emergency, call 911 or the appropriate local emergency number now.
In the United States, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You may contact 988 for yourself or because you are concerned about someone else.
Outside the United States, contact the appropriate local emergency service or a verified crisis-support provider.