Commonly Used Terms and Acronyms

Below are terms and acronyms that are commonly used in this work. If there is a term or acronym that isn’t on this list and you have questions about, please email Jenn Fraga at jfraga@aocmhp.org for help.

Adi’s Act – Also known as SB 52. This piece of legislation was passed in the 2019 Oregon Legislative Session and requires school districts to adopt policies that require comprehensive district wide student suicide prevention plans.

ACA – Affordable Care Act; a health care reform law enacted in March 2010 (sometimes known as PPACA, or “Obamacare”).

ACEs – Adverse Childhood Experiences; Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are traumatic events occurring before age 18. ACEs include all types of abuse and neglect as well as parental mental illness, substance use, divorce, incarceration, and domestic violence.

ADA – Americans with Disabilities Act; The ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including jobs, schools, transportation, and all public and private places that are open to the general public. The purpose of the law is to make sure that people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as everyone else. The ADA gives civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities similar to those provided to individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age, and religion. It guarantees equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities in public accommodations, employment, transportation, state and local government services, and telecommunications. The ADA is divided into five titles (or sections) that relate to different areas of public life.

ADL – Activities of Daily Living; The Activities of Daily Living are a series of basic activities necessary for independent living at home or in the community. They are performed on a daily basis. There are many variations on the definition of the ADLs, but most organizations agree there are 5 basic categories: Personal hygiene, Dressing, Eating, Maintaining continence, Transferring/Mobility. The ability to walk independently from one location to another. The level of independence is based on whether someone can perform these activities on their own or they need help from a family caregiver.

ASIPP – Adult Suicide Intervention and Prevention Plan. This is currently in development and will be the first one in Oregon.

ASIST – Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training; A two-day face-to-face workshop featuring powerful audiovisuals, discussions, and simulations where you’ll learn how to prevent suicide by recognizing signs, providing a skilled intervention, and developing a safety plan to keep someone alive.

ASD – Autism Spectrum Disorder

ATD – Assistive Technology & Devices; Assistive devices and technologies are those whose primary purpose is to maintain or improve an individual’s functioning and independence to facilitate participation and to enhance overall well-being. They can also help prevent impairments and secondary health conditions. Examples of assistive devices and technologies include wheelchairs, prostheses, hearings aids, visual aids, and specialized computer software and hardware that increase mobility, hearing, vision, or communication capacities.

BCS – Behavior Consultation & Support; The goal of the Behavior Consultant service is to focus on changes that can be made by the caregiver or within the person’s environment. Unlike traditional methods of behavior ‘management,’ this approach changes the caregivers and person’s routines rather than expecting the person to change.

BHC – Behavioral Health Collaborative; In 2016 the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) brought together a diverse group of people and organizations called the Behavioral Health Collaborative.

BRS – Behavioral Rehabilitative Services / Residential Services; Provides behavioral intervention, counseling, and skills-training services. The Department of Human Services contracts with private agencies throughout the state to provide these services to children or young adults who meet BRS eligibility criteria.

CAC – Community Advisory Council; The goal of the OHA Office of Equity and Inclusion Community Advisory Council (CAC) is to center community voices in the Office of Equity and Inclusion’s (OEI) work to improve health equity and to establish a more equitable relationship between OEI, OHA and Oregon’s diverse communities.

CANS – Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths; A multi-purpose tool developed for children’s services to support decision making, including level of care and service planning, to facilitate quality improvement initiatives, and to allow for the monitoring of outcomes of services.

CASA – Court Appointed Special Advocate; A national association in the United States that supports and promotes court-appointed advocates for abused or neglected children. CASA are volunteers from the community who complete training that has been provided by the state or local CASA office.

CATS – Crisis and Transition Services; A program provides short-term, intensive outpatient mental health care to children and adolescents who have had a mental health crisis and presented to an emergency department or crisis center.

CBS – Community Based Services; see Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) for more information.

CCO – Coordinated Care Organizations; Oregon implemented a statewide accountable care model in 2012 with the launch of CCOs. CCOs are partnerships of payers, providers, and community organizations that work at the community level to provide coordinated health care for children and adult Oregon Health Plan Enrollees.

CDDP – Community Developmental Disabilities Program

CDHS – Children’s Development Health Services

CHA – Community Health Assessment

CIIS – Children’s Intensive In-home Services

CMHP – Community Mental Health Programs

CONNECT Postvention – Developed by NAMI New Hampshire, this program increases the capacity of a community or organization to respond effectively to a suicide death in order to prevent additional suicides and promote healing for survivors of suicide loss.

CPS – Collaborative Problem Solving OR Child Protective Services

CSAC – Children’s System Advisory Council is an advisory council for the Oregon Health Authority’s Child and Family Behavioral Health programs.

C-SSRS – Columbia- Suicide Severity Rating Scale

DD – Developmental Disabilities

DDS – Developmental Disability Services

DOJ – Oregon Department of Justice

DSM – Diagnostic Statistical Manual

DV / CDV – Domestic Violence / Childhood Domestic Violence

EASA – The Early Assessment and Support Alliance. EASA provides information and support to young people experiencing symptoms of psychosis for the first time.

EDD – Emergency Department Diversion

EHR – Electronic Health Record

ERS – Emergency Response Systems

FFS – Fee-for-Service

FMLA – Family Medical Leave Act

FSS – Family Support Specialist

Gatekeeper – those individuals in a community who have face-to-face contact with large numbers of community members as part of their usual routine; they may be trained to identify persons at risk of suicide and refer them to treatment or supporting services as appropriate.

HCBS – Home and Community-based Services / Settings

HDM – Home Delivered Meals

HHS – Health and Human Services

I/DD – Intellectual / Developmental Disabilities

ODE – Oregon Department of Education. ODE’s mission is to foster equity and excellence for every learner through collaboration with educators, partners, and communities.

OHA – The Oregon Health Authority. OHA’s mission is ensuring all people and communities can achieve optimum physical, mental, and social well-being through partnerships, prevention, and access to quality, affordable health care.

Regional Suicide Prevention Coalitions – In many communities across Oregon, community members have formed local suicide prevention coalitions that meet regularly. If you would like to actively participate in suicide prevention work in your community, please consider joining a suicide prevention coalition in your community. Each coalition maintains its own meeting schedule and agenda and decides their own priorities to focus on.

SB 52 – See Adi’s Act.

SPRC – Suicide Prevention Resource Center

Suicide Intervention – A direct effort to prevent a person or persons from attempting to take their own life or lives intentionally.

Suicide Postvention – An organized response in the aftermath of a suicide to accomplish any one or more of the following: To facilitate the healing of individuals from the grief and distress of suicide loss; To mitigate other negative effects of exposure to suicide; To prevent suicide among people who are at high risk after exposure to suicide.

Suicide Prevention – A collection of efforts to reduce the risk of suicide. These efforts may occur at the individual, relationship, community, and society level.

Surveillance – the ongoing, systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of health data with timely dissemination of findings.

YALC – Young Adult Leadership Council. Youth leadership within EASA. YALC works to unite the voices and strengths of young adults and their allies in order to help create a thriving community and a revolution of hope.

YSIPP – Youth Suicide Intervention and Prevention Plan is a five-year statewide plan that outlines Oregon’s goals and objectives to reduce the incidence of youth suicide. The first version ends in 2020 and the next version of this is in development as of December 2020.

YYEA – Youth and Young Adult Engagement Advisory. YYEA is dedicated to amplifying young adult voices in decision-making for all local and state agencies by providing ongoing opportunities for young adults and adult allies to engage in self-advocacy, building community relationships with youth-serving agencies and providers, and advising the Children’s System Advisory Council, the Oregon Alliance to Prevent Suicide, Healthy Transitions Steering Committee, and other system partners on important issues that matter to youth.

Zero Suicide – A commitment to suicide prevention in health and behavioral health care systems and is also a specific set of strategies and tools. The foundational belief of Zero Suicide is that suicide deaths for individuals under care within health and behavioral health systems are preventable.