Alice Hendy lost her only sibling, her brother Josh, on 25th November 2020 to suicide at 21 years old. After examining Josh’s phone, Alice found that he had been researching techniques to take his own life via harmful internet searches. Mental health is a serious and urgent issue. Online searches for suicide methods have increased by 50% in the last 2 years with searches for suicide support lines also up by 150% since January 2019 (Semrush, 2021).
To ensure more help and support is given to individuals searching for harmful content online, Alice set up R;pple. R;pple is a digital tool, which if a user searches for harmful content online, they will first be guided through a filter of breathing exercises and then very simple, uncluttered and calmly presented strategies and forums, help lines and mental health services they can access both now and longer term: accompanied with messages of hope and encouragement to keep safe.
To date, R;pple has been downloaded over 850,000 times, intercepted 3,400 people from harmful online searches and had 24 individuals approach her directly to inform her that R;pple intercepting them online at their most vulnerable point has saved their life.
Individually, you can download the lifesaving R;pple tool at home, for free on their website. For businesses and corporates, please liaise with your Wellbeing and IT teams and inform them that R;pple is a browser extension (available on Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox and Opera Browsers that can be deployed en masse for a small subscription fee.
The University of Nottingham are inviting professionals working across different settings with young people who have self-harmed to share their views on the CaTS-app – which aims to improve shared understanding and assessment of self-harm between young people and professionals.
Two of our wonderful team members, Dani and Emma, lead our Wellbeing Programme for the internal Storm Skills Training team. They’re passionate and committed to improving the health and wellbeing of our team and are invested in promoting a happy and supportive environment.
Since getting the go ahead from our CEO Bianca and our Board, they have introduced and grown a programme which has gone from strength to strength. We are so proud and thankful to them for developing this idea.
In this piece Dani and Emma tell us how it all began, what they’ve learned, and what their plans are for the future.
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