By Audrey Walls, M.Ed, MFA, with Karen Kennedy, MSW
In her work with survivors of suicide loss, Karen Kennedy has heard hundreds of stories from individuals, families, and communities that have lost a loved one to suicide: parents, spouses, children, teens, coworkers, teammates, neighbors, and more. Although their individual stories are unique, the questions, shock, and vulnerability that get suddenly dropped into the lives of those left behind is palpable. “Recent research has shown that for every death by suicide, approximately 135 people are affected,” Karen shares, “And that’s whether they had a close relationship to the person who died or not.” [1]
With over 15 years of experience in the field of suicide loss and bereavement, Karen, who began as a group leader for Full Circle in 2011, but rose to her current role as Senior Manager of Suicide Bereavement Services five years ago, was the clear lead when Full Circle Grief Center was awarded a grant from the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) focused on suicide intervention and postvention resources. The $118,000 grant, first awarded in 2025, recognized Full Circle’s work as the leading provider of postvention care in Virginia, and put a team on tap to create a number of initiatives on increasing suicide care and awareness. The largest of these projects became two manuals: one focused on suicide interventions for those experiencing thoughts of suicide, and an upcoming one on grief and bereavement care for survivors of suicide loss.
“We developed a relationship with VDH, as both organizations realized the need for expanding postvention services within the Commonwealth of Virginia,” explains Karen. “We wanted to expand our service areas to comprehensive care including individual, group, community outreach and education.” A significant part of the grant was the creation of these manuals to decrease the stigma of suicide, share resources, and provide psychoeducation to providers and families alike.
With their mission in mind, Full Circle’s internal team, composed of Karen, Executive Director, Allyson Drake, and Community Bereavement Services Manager, Kerri Björkholm, set to task on creating content that was accessible, comprehensive, and compassionate. However, the focus of each manual is notably different. “While our intervention manual is specific to supporting someone who is experiencing thoughts of suicide, our postvention manual is a guide to navigating life after a death by suicide,” Karen shares. “Our postvention manual provides suicide loss survivors with information, practical tools, and resources on the topic of suicide bereavement. We made an effort to develop a comprehensive manual in the hopes that survivors can identify themselves, their loved ones, and their experiences with validation and acceptance.”
Karen readily acknowledges that processing the experience of losing a loved one to suicide is not an easy one. “Grief after a suicide death may include various trauma responses, self-blame, guilt and regret, unanswered questions, and trying to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense. If someone hasn’t experienced this type of loss before, these elements can feel unfamiliar and incredibly difficult to manage.” This is where the postvention manual hopes to step in and provide guidance and resources in a clear and compassionate way. “Every individual is different and every death by suicide has differences, so we tried to make sure we included all the various factors that may be part of someone’s story,” Karen explains. “I want the reader to feel seen and able to find greater understanding of an experience that most often has many unanswered questions.”
This is an undertaking that Karen, unsurprisingly, takes seriously and personally. “I feel responsible for providing accurate and truthful information that many survivors can relate to,” she attests. “This is easily both the most rewarding and the most challenging part of this project.” Knowing this, the team has ensured to cover a variety of topics that suicide loss survivors have shared they don’t find in other resources: how to plan a memorial service, what to expect from law enforcement, how to ask for help, what documents to collect and when. “It will be rewarding to be able to give this resource to someone experiencing, quite frankly, one of the worst moments in their lives, and to know it is a compassionate, thorough, informative resource,” Karen adds.
While the focus is undoubtedly on serving the unique individual faced with this kind of loss, Karen and her team are aware that there is a whispered conversation about suicide loss that happens in larger communities. Despite suicide prevention initiatives, the number of deaths by suicide continue to rise, both worldwide and in Virginia, according to sources from both the Virginia Department of Health and World Health Organization [2] [3]. Having timely, specific, and intentional support for communities impacted by a suicide loss is incredibly important as those groups come together to grieve collectively. “Having access to guidance on how to support one another not only fosters resilience, but it helps prevent the idea of suicide contagion, which is a process where exposure to suicide or suicide behavior increases the risk of suicide behavior in peer groups or communities,” Karen explains. The connection between services and care after a suicide loss and the prevention of future deaths by suicide is clear: “In the field, it is widely recognized that suicide postvention is suicide prevention,” she adds.
Unfortunately, clarity in the aftermath of a suicide loss is often a foregone conclusion, as many families and communities grapple with unanswered questions and misconceptions about the person who has died. Karen believes that one of the biggest misunderstandings about suicide is that everyone who dies by suicide is, by default, also mentally ill. “Mental health and illness certainly play a role in many deaths, but not all of them,” she suggests. “There are many additional possible experiences such as social, relational, biological, physical, cultural, environmental and spiritual factors that may contribute to a suicide death.” Karen relates that many of her clients have shared that their loved one didn’t have a history of mental illness, and that they definitely do not appreciate the assumption society can place. However, suicidology, or the study of suicide, has started to shift its focus to including other behavioral and societal factors that increase vulnerability to suicide behavior, thus providing room for additional prevention services to identify these individuals, regardless of mental illness [4].
Overall, through this partnership with the VDH and the expansion of these two manual resources, Karen returns time and again to a feeling of hope for both professionals and individuals who may need to consult its pages. “I hope survivors are able to identify their needs, learn ways to support themselves and their loved ones, take away ideas to connect with their loved ones in ways that feel meaningful,” she adds. These resources are built on many of the ideals that Karen and her team express: the hope that survivors feel validated in their experience, hope that some questions may get answers, and hope that life after a suicide loss exists, even though it may not feel possible at first.
Research Cited
[1] Cerel, J., Brown, M. M., Maple, M., Singleton, M., van de Venne, J., Moore, M., & Flaherty, C. (2019). How many people are exposed to suicide? Not six. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 49(2), 529–534. https://doi.org/10.1111/sltb.12450
[2] World Health Organization. (2025, March 25). Suicide. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide
[3] Virginia Department of Health. (2026, August 13). Injury and violence deaths. https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/data/injury-violence/injury-and-violence-deaths/
[4] Cramer, R. J., & Kapusta, N. D. (2017). A social-ecological framework of theory, assessment, and prevention of suicide. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1756. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01756
Funding note: Projects funded through SAMHSA federal grant award # 5H79SM086111-03 and in partnership with the Virginia Department of Health.