Beacon 24/7 Best Practices

Be selective about who you put on your Escalation List. Staff on this list will be able to see personal and sensitive information about suicide and self-harm. We recommend only using staff that has been trained and is confident in executing your school’s Suicide Prevention Plan. Staff that are willing to take action at any time, day or night. These are typically school administrators and/or counselors. To increase the likelihood of the Safety Support team successfully speaking with someone from your school, we recommend that there are two staff members on schedule at all times, not including the Last Responder. Due to the sensitivity of these alerts and the possibility that action might need to be taken after school hours, Teachers and IT Admins typically are not included, unless they have special training in mental health. In addition, when family members or guardians of students may be employed by your school in a mental health or student safety capacity, consider whether it would be appropriate for this staff member to be on the escalation list and potentially receive an alert for a student with whom they are personally connected. Please consult your school’s policies and Suicide Prevention Plan to see who the appropriate staff members should be on this list. They should also have access to Beacon; we recommend they have either Super Counselor or Counselor user privileges. It is important that staff on the Escalation List are well educated about what Beacon 24/7 is and what to expect when/if they receive a call.

Choose who your Last Responder will be with care. This individual should be someone willing to answer the phone and take action at any time, day or night. Since the Last Responder will only be contacted if the Safety Support team is unable to reach anyone else on the Escalation List, it is important that the Last Responder must be available and have their phone close to them 24/7.

Have a plan for communicating with other staff members if you miss a Beacon 24/7 Escalation call. We recommend that you check your Beacon Dashboard first.  The Beacon Dashboard will show where the Safety Support team is in the escalation process and if any action has been taken on the alert.  You can also reference the initial email that is sent out when an Active Planning alert is escalated to see the entire Escalation List along with the staff members’ emails and phone numbers.

Try to avoid using general office numbers.  Remind the Escalation List members to provide a phone number that they will be checking outside of school hours and that the number matches what is listed for them in Org Management.

Save our number to your contacts. We recommend that everyone save the Beacon 24/7 phone number, (855) 921-2124, to your contacts as “Beacon 24/7 Escalation”.  Remember that this number is for outbound calls only, and currently does not accept incoming calls.

For those who use Do Not Disturb (DND) mode on their mobile devices, we suggest bypassing this setting by following these steps:

iPhone

1. Open Contacts
2. Select the entry for the person you want to bypass DND
3. Tap “Edit” in the card’s upper right corner
4. Scroll down to “Ringtone” and tap it
5. At the top of the next card, toggle Emergency Bypass to “on.”  That allows the calls from that person to bypass Do Not Disturb
6. (Optional) Choose a different ringtone for this contact
7. Tap Done

Android (applies to Android 10, steps may vary by device or Android OS version)

1. Open your phone’s Settings app
2. Tap Sound > Do Not Disturb
3. Under “Exceptions,” scroll to Calls and tap Allow Calls
4. Pick who’s calls get through: anyone, contacts only, or starred contacts only
5. To let a call through if the same person calls twice in 15 minutes, turn on Allow repeat callers