Safety plan templates, built on the evidence.
A safety plan is a written, prioritised list of coping steps a client works through when suicidal thoughts intensify. Below: the six-step Stanley-Brown Safety Planning Intervention in printable form, a pocket-sized one-page template, a step-by-step guide to building one in session, guidance for active ideation, and how a safety plan differs from a crisis plan. All printable, all PII-free.
Stanley-Brown Safety Plan
Highest-evidence brief suicide intervention
Six-step safety plan: warning signs, coping, distraction, help, professionals, means restriction.
Teen Self-Harm Safety Sheet
Function, alternatives, delay, means
Non-judgmental harm reduction: name the function, try alternatives, delay commitment, restrict means.
Mixed Features Red-Line Plan
Highest-risk state, planned in advance
Recognize mixed features (depression + activation) and follow a same-day red-line plan.
Depression Safety Plan (Plain Language)
Written when steady, ready when you're not
Warning signs, internal coping, people, professionals, and environmental safety — the Stanley-Brown structure in plain English.
Stanley-Brown Safety Plan Worksheet
The 6-step evidence-based suicide safety plan, in printable form
The six-step Stanley-Brown Safety Planning Intervention: warning signs, internal coping, distraction people and places, contacts to ask for help, professional supports, and means restriction. Companion to the interactive Safety Plan tool.
Suicide Safety Plan Template
One-page printable template for pocket or phone
A one-page suicide safety plan template — warning signs, first internal move, who to contact, professional support, one item to remove or lock, one reason to stay. Client-owned language, no numbers on the printed page.
How to Create a Safety Plan
The six Stanley-Brown steps, in order
A step-by-step guide to building a suicide safety plan with a client: warning signs, internal coping, distraction, people to tell, professional contacts, and means restriction — with drafting space for each step and an end-of-session checklist.
Safety Plan for Suicidal Ideation
What changes when ideation is current
Clinical guidance for safety planning with active suicidal ideation: the four ideation questions, a specific means-restriction agreement, responses when a client is reluctant, higher-risk periods, and a week of intent tracking.
Crisis Plan vs Safety Plan
Two documents, two jobs
How a client-held safety plan differs from a shared crisis plan, a relapse prevention plan, and a no-suicide contract — plus advance preferences recorded while the client is well.
What a safety plan is
A safety plan is a written, prioritised list of coping steps and support contacts that a person works through when suicidal thoughts intensify. It is created collaboratively with a clinician, in the client's own words, while they are able to think clearly — not during the crisis it is designed for.
The version with the evidence behind it is the Safety Planning Intervention developed by Barbara Stanley and Gregory Brown (2012), used across US emergency departments and VA services. Its six steps run from what the client can do entirely alone to what requires other people: warning signs, internal coping strategies, people and settings that provide distraction, people to ask for help, professionals and crisis services, and making the environment safer.
That ordering is the intervention. Working down the list rather than jumping straight to a crisis line is what builds the client's sense that a surge in intent is survivable without rescue — and it is the reason a plan handed over as a finished form does not do the same work as one drafted together.
How to create one in session
Start from the last crisis, not from generalities: what happened in the hours before it, in what order. Warning signs the client can recognise early are more useful than a complete list. Then build step two from something that has already worked at least once, and test each entry against a single question — could you actually do this at two in the morning?
Steps three and four are frequently confused, and that confusion is where plans stall. Step three is distraction: a coffee shop, a sibling's kitchen, a gym, where nobody has to be told anything. Step four is disclosure: the people the client would actually tell. Clients who resist step four will often complete step three fully, and that is worth having.
Finish with step six, and make it specific. Who is holding what, where it goes, and until when. Means restriction has the strongest evidence of any step in the plan and is the one most often left as an intention. Before the session ends, have the client read the plan back out loud, rate how likely they are to use it, and photograph it — a plan in a drawer is not a plan.
Where safety planning stops
Safety planning sits alongside risk assessment, formulation and treatment of the underlying condition; it does not replace any of them, and it does not predict risk. Where intent is high, means remain available, or the client cannot engage with the plan at all, the indicated response is a higher level of care and supervisory input — not a more detailed worksheet.
None of the templates here ask for identifying information. Support people are recorded by initials or role, and phone numbers stay on the client's phone rather than on paper, because a safety plan is carried in a pocket and is sometimes lost.
Reference: Stanley, B., & Brown, G. K. (2012). Safety Planning Intervention: A Brief Intervention to Mitigate Suicide Risk. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 19(2), 256–264.
Frequently asked questions
What is a safety plan in mental health?+
A safety plan is a written, prioritised list of coping steps a person works through when suicidal thoughts intensify. The evidence-based version is the Stanley-Brown Safety Planning Intervention (Stanley & Brown, 2012), which has six steps: warning signs, internal coping strategies, people and settings that distract, people to ask for help, professionals and crisis services, and making the environment safer. It is created collaboratively in session, in the client's own words, before the next crisis.
How do you create a safety plan with a client?+
Work the six steps in order, from what the client can do entirely alone to what requires other people, and use their own language rather than the form's. Draft it in session, test every step against 'could you actually do this at 2am?', finish with a specific means-restriction agreement that names who is holding what and until when, and have the client read the whole plan back and photograph it before they leave.
What is the difference between a safety plan and a crisis plan?+
A safety plan is client-held, one page, and used alone in the first minutes of a crisis. A crisis plan is shared with the care team and often family, and covers escalation, preferred and refused interventions, and who to contact. Most clients need both, kept as separate documents — a safety plan folded into a longer crisis plan stops being usable in the window it exists for.
Is a safety plan the same as a no-suicide contract?+
No. A no-suicide contract is a promise not to act and has no evidence of effectiveness; it can also suppress disclosure. Safety planning is a stepped coping plan with a substantial evidence base for reducing suicidal behaviour after an emergency presentation.
Which step matters most?+
Means restriction — step six. It has the strongest evidence behind it and is the step most often skipped or left as a vague intention. Make it specific: what is being moved or secured, who is holding it, and until when.
Are these templates free and printable?+
Yes. Every safety planning template here is a free printable PDF sized for US Letter, and none of them ask for names, addresses or phone numbers — support people are recorded by initials or role only, so a lost plan does not expose anyone.
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