It is an honour to write a recap of our first official IASP Pan-American Conference, which was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota (USA). We started the first day with an insightful plenary session on national suicide prevention strategies. Speakers helped us navigate the different work that has been done in the Americas, including first-hand experiences and challenges in the plan’s implementation in countries such as Brazil. This session also included a deep dive into the revision and construction of the updated National Suicide Strategy carried out by leaders in the USA. Speakers agreed on the same when it comes to national suicide prevention strategies: cross-institutional partnerships and culturally relevant approaches are key in the implementation of prevention plans and/or strategies.
After this session, it was nice to go for a coffee and start catching up with some of our friends and colleagues in person. There is a sort of magic when you meet with some of your colleagues in settings like this after sharing countless Zoom sessions. The coffee break set us up for the first set of oral presentations. I had the opportunity to chair the first and only Spanish-speaking oral presentation session. Dr Tamara Otzen enlightened us with some of the work being done by some of our colleagues in Chile, highlighting the slow but steady progress in the creation of monitoring systems (using mobile apps and websites) to prevent suicide in school and university settings (if you are interested, I encourage you to connect with the RedOPA).
