Beyond the Basics Suicide Prevention Conference

Save the Date! The Beyond the Basics 2026 Conference, Compassionate Communities: Promoting Action for Suicide Prevention, will take place on Monday, April 13th at the Hilton Garden Inn Auburn Riverwatch, from 8 AM to 4 PM.

Join clinicians, providers, and mental health industry experts for presentations and panels about Suicide Prevention and Postvention, and how to create positive action in our communities to prevent suicide.

REGISTER TODAY! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2026-beyond-the-basics-in-suicide-prevention-conference-tickets-1984411872329?aff=oddtdtcreator

Keynote Speaker:

This year’s Keynote Speaker, Steven J. Karaiskos, PhD, will be sharing his talk: Compassionate Communities: Where Prevention,  Postvention, and Healing Meet. This keynote explores how suicide prevention is strengthened when communities invest in connection across the full arc of human experience, long before crisis, in moments of acute need, and in the aftermath of loss. Drawing from lived experience, research, and decades of work in education, prevention, and suicide postvention, Steven Karaiskos, PhD, invites audiences to reimagine community not as the backdrop for prevention, but as the intervention itself.

Through personal stories from early childhood classrooms, international school communities, and his current work at The Kita Center, Steven examines how belonging, mattering, and trust shape our capacity to support one another through stress, grief, disruption, and recovery. He explores how listening, cultural humility, and care-centered practices help communities remain connected when things are hardest and how postvention, when done with intention, becomes one of our most powerful forms of prevention.

Grounded in the belief that we heal through relationships, this keynote reframes suicide prevention as shared human work: creating communities where people experience belonging, are treated with dignity, and know they matter. Across the full arc of struggle and recovery, it is these relational spaces, where people are seen, held, and supported, that allow individuals and communities not just to survive, but to flourish.

This event is hosted by NAMI Maine and the Maine CDC.

REGISTER HERE: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2026-beyond-the-basics-in-suicide-prevention-conference-tickets-1984411872329?aff=oddtdtcreator