News

To mark WSPD, we are showcasing some of the projects that we have supported in the last year in the September edition of our newsletter. This year’s WSPD theme is Creating Hope Through Action, and we are sure you will agree that these brilliant initiatives are doing exactly that.

We’ve been reading a very useful report about the sensitive topic of asking about suicide and self-harm when a patient is in primary care. You can read the full report from Ford et al here and we have pulled out some of the key points in this article.

NSPA’s Lived Experience Network is striving to ensure that suicide prevention activity across the country is underpinned by the voices of people with lived experience, and that knowledge of those with lived experience is valued, respected and seen as legitimate.

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).

Mica Gray is a Wellbeing practitioner at St Germain’s Church in Birmingham. Her role involves providing low intensity CBT support to people signed up for 1:1 support sessions.

NSPA’s Lived Experience Network is striving to ensure that suicide prevention activity across the country is underpinned by the voices of people with lived experience, and that knowledge of those with lived experience is valued, respected and seen as legitimate.