In this episode of Headspace for the Workplace, I sit down with Cheri Skelding, Clinical Director of Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners, to explore one of the most evidence-backed and underused tools in suicide prevention: caring contacts.
Caring contacts are brief, non-demanding outreach moments, such as a text, a voicemail, or a handwritten note, that communicate to someone: “I see you. I’m here. You matter.” Simple as they sound, they carry decades of rigorous research behind them, including randomized controlled trials showing they reduce suicide risk by more than two times for people leaving psychiatric hospitalization.
The conversation spans upstream prevention (building belonging before crisis hits), midstream support (reaching out during difficult transitions), and downstream follow-up (what workplaces can do after a mental health emergency). Cheri and I make the case that the most powerful thing an organization can do may not be an expensive program or an elaborate protocol. It may be a two-sentence text message sent at the right moment.
Why This Matters in the Workplace
Workplaces are where people spend the majority of their waking hours. They are also one of the first environments to notice when something has shifted in a person, possibly even before family does, and sometimes before the individual themselves fully recognizes it.
And yet organizations routinely underestimate their role in mental health. They defer to EAPs, outsource to clinicians, and treat suicide prevention as someone else’s professional domain. This episode makes the case that the most effective first step doesn’t belong to a clinician. It belongs to a colleague, a manager, an HR professional, or a peer who decides to send a three-sentence message.
BUSINESS AND CULTURE CASE:
• Belonging at work is a documented driver of engagement, retention, and productivity.
• Employees who feel seen and valued are more likely to disclose struggles early, before they escalate.
• A caring contact program requires minimal cost and zero clinical infrastructure.
• It reduces the risk of “hot-potato” referral culture, where employees in distress are shuttled from person to person without any genuine human contact.
• It extends the impact of existing gatekeeper training, which research shows fades rapidly without reinforcement.
THE EQUITY DIMENSION:
Caring contacts are radically democratic. They do not require a degree, a credential, or a clinical title. Middle schoolers can do it. Senior executives can do it. The person at the front desk can do it. That universality is not a limitation; it is the point. The goal is a culture of proactive connection, where everyone understands that their humanness is the most important tool they bring to the table.
In this episode we’ll answer:
What are caring contacts and how do they prevent suicide?
How can a simple text message save someone’s life?
How do I support an employee returning from a mental health leave?
What should a manager say to an employee who is struggling?
How do you build a caring contact program at work?
TWO TACTICAL TAKEAWAYS
1. Connection Beats Complexity
Cheri’s first takeaway reframes the entire field of suicide prevention: we have over-complicated it. Organizations invest in lengthy risk assessments, liability reviews, and referral pipelines and in doing so, often lose sight of the person at the center of the struggle.
A caring contact cuts through all of that. It is not a clinical intervention. It does not require a license, a protocol, or a scripted conversation. It requires only humanness.
2. Cheri’s second takeaway addresses what workplaces should do after a mental health emergency, a suicide attempt, a hospitalization, a leave of absence, a serious crisis. The research here is unequivocal and often surprises people. Early studies on caring contacts demonstrated more than a two-times protective benefit for individuals who continued to receive outreach after a psychiatric crisis. More recent research tracks those benefits up to one year, five years, and even ten years post-contact. A durability that gatekeeper training programs (which tend to lose impact within weeks) simply cannot match.
about cheri skelding
Cheri L. Skelding, LCSW is a behavioral health leader and workplace consultant with more than 25 years of experience in crisis services, suicide prevention, and organizational well-being. As a founding executive at Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners (RMCP), she spent nearly 15 years helping develop Colorado’s first statewide crisis and peer support line. As Chief Program Officer, she guided the agency’s growth from two staff to more than 350 and oversaw hotline, text and chat, mobile dispatch, and hospital follow-up services.
Through RMCP, Cheri leads consulting that translates public-sector crisis expertise into workplace-ready solutions. Drawing on RMCP’s experience as both a crisis provider and employer, along with her earlier work delivering EAP services and advising workplace leaders, she helps organizations strengthen suicide prevention, wellness, and psychological safety. Recognizing there is no one-size-fits-all approach, RMCP partners with employers to build cultures of care, connection, and safety.
Fun fact: Cheri enjoys spending time on her renewed hobby of photography, focusing on anything that is willing to stand still long enough for her to take a picture!
Learn more: rmcrisispartners.org
LinkedIn: @cheri skelding
LinkedIn: @rocky mountain crisis partners
Instagram: @rockymountaincrisispartners
Facebook: @rocky mountain crisis partners