Companion: Social Support Networking Technology for Survivors of Suicide

This position paper presents a conceptualization of a model of a survivor of suicide’s (SOS) social support network. By knowing the actors in a SOS’s social support network, information can be customized and delivered directly to them at the time of their greatest need. This has the potential to improve the current treatment available for survivor’s of suicide and positively influence the bereavement process, bereavementrelated outcomes, and health-related quality of life for everyone in the social support network. We will briefly describe suicide survivorship, present our model of the social support network, and COMPANION – our location based mobile support system designed to connect social support network members. We believe this will enable use to describe the communication use and patterns of the SOS’s social support network and positively impact their health related quality of life.