Our story so far…
Little did our co-founders, Gill and Linda, know that in 20 years’ time, Storm Skills Training would become the successful not-for-profit, social enterprise that it is today.
Research is a core part of our identity – and it always will be
Storm Skills Training in Self-harm and Suicide Prevention is a high-quality, effective self-harm and suicide prevention training package that is supported by a wealth of research, experience, and expertise.
The research proves that our training helps enhance skills, knowledge, and confidence. This gives you the confidence that it works.
Research is a core part of Storm Skills Training’s identity. It lies at the heart of everything we do, and it always will. Research into the effectiveness of our training methodology is where we started.
Our training encompasses best practice, research, evidence, and lived experience in suicide and self-harm prevention and related fields.
Our research, consultation and evaluation
Our packages are based on academic research and best practice with a focus on real life experiences.
You can have confidence in our training package because research shows that it makes a significant difference; improving the skills, attitudes, and confidence of frontline team members across different settings and contexts, from schools and prisons to frontline mental health teams.
By commissioning Storm Skills Training, you can feel confident that our training package is of the highest quality and that it is based on research, evidence, evaluation, and consultation.
Mid-1990’s
Where it all began…
We’re often asked, “Where did it all begin?”. And what better way to explain than to tell you a story…
It’s the mid-1990s, and two students of psychiatry, Professor Linda Gask and Professor Richard Morriss, came together with a shared vision of improving the conversations that people have with people in distress.
They decided to combine their research interests to develop a training methodology and model that helped bridge the gap between academic knowledge and clinical practice in frontline teams.
They developed a training package that focused on how to have conversations with people in distress, based on the skills of having conversations, and demonstrated how using viewing recorded roleplays could actually change people’s behaviour.
The structure and methods of the training were designed to build skills in compassionate and empathetic communication with people experiencing thoughts of suicide.
A small pilot study confirmed that they were on the right track – the model improved communication skills with people experiencing thoughts of suicide.
Late 1990’s
The meeting of our co-founders
In 1997, it was a chance job advertisement in a national paper for a Trainer and Researcher that introduced Dr. Gill Green to Storm Skills Training. It was an opportunity to work on a 12-month project with Professor Linda Gask at the University of Manchester.
After the project:
- Gill stepped away for a few years, remaining in research but working with prisons on a different project.
- Linda continued to receive requests for Storm Skills Training long after two larger studies into the training model’s efficacy and feasibility had been published.
Linda realised that this was only just the beginning for Storm Skills Training.
What else would be possible?
Early 2000’s
Responding to the increasing demand for self-harm and suicide prevention training
It’s now 2003, and the ongoing requests for training led to the creation of the Storm Project at the University of Manchester.
Linda invited Gill back to manage the project, and work on developing the training packages.
There was a field-wide focus during this time towards academic research into the real world. The Storm project was seen as an excellent candidate for this. And the journey to finding a suitably ethical business model began…
2010 to 2011
Creation of Storm Skills Training as a social impact Community Interest Company
The research that Linda, Gill, and their colleagues were doing was making a real difference to help people working on the frontline to enhance their skills to help prevent suicide. The University of Manchester were eager to get the research out to the real world to make even more of an impact to prevent suicide.
When considering the business models, the only clear option that stood out was a new concept at the time – to set up a Social Enterprise (Community Interest Company). The Social Enterprise business model encapsulated everything that they wanted Storm Skills Training to be about and most importantly it aligned to their core values.
When Storm Skills Training CIC was set up in 2011, Gill became CEO and Linda became a Director of this very impactful Community Interest Company.
Gill received a number of recognition awards from UnLtd over the years for her work creating a successful social enterprise. The first award she received, the “Dare to be Different” in Higher Education in 2010, was the milestone that introduced Gill to Alf Hill (now a Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Storm Skills Training Board) and his business acumen.
2013
Extending our impact to the other side of the globe
It wasn’t long until the project grew. New packages were being created and we were even starting to expand our reach to an international audience – Australia.
In 2013, Gill visited Australia to train up a new group of facilitators, this is when she first met Bianca Romanyk, (our now CEO!). Bianca was one of the amazing trainee facilitators that Gill trained. Bianca had just started a brand new role as a Capacity Building and Development Officer, delivering Storm Skills Training in schools across Australia, as part of a suicide postvention support service for schools. At this stage, Bianca could see the positive impact the training had on school communities. Her passion for suicide prevention and Storm Skills Training continued to grow.
Bianca had an instant connection with Storm Skills Training – she left the training session feeling so empowered that she knew there was something she could do to help school communities to have more effective conversations about suicide. She wanted everyone to feel the same.
After the training, Gill returned back to the UK to continue developing Storm Skills Training. Bianca continued making an impact on the other side of the globe delivering Storm Skills Training.
2014
Bianca teams up with Gill at Storm Skills Training CIC…
Gill returns to Australia to train up more facilitators, and upgrade Bianca and her colleagues to the newest version of Storm Skills Training – Version 3. It was during this time that Bianca and Gill discussed Bianca’s impending move to the UK. And an agreement to meet when she got there, to discuss the possibilities of working together. Bianca was thrilled.
Needless to say, Bianca did move to the UK. She worked with Gill to get Version 4 out to customers. And took a lead role in leading the organisation through the pandemic and into the online world.
2023
Storm Skills Training today
Today, Storm Skills Training is more than just a training package. We are a successful social enterprise that continues to benefit the self-harm and suicide prevention community. Although Storm Skills Training has evolved over time, the training methodologies that were developed back then are what we use today.
Our training package continues to be built on a solid foundation of:
- Research
- Expertise
- The latest evidence, research, lived experience, and best practice.
Research shows that our training methodologies make a difference to the skills, attitudes, and confidence of frontline team members, across a number of different settings. From schools and prisons to frontline mental health teams.
Today, Storm Skills Training CIC continues to benefit the self-harm and suicide prevention community. We continue to believe that no one should profit from the distress of others. We exist to provide Self-harm and Suicide Prevention training, and being successful in the training we deliver means we can extend our impact beyond this. Every penny we generate is used for the sole purpose of benefiting the self-harm and suicide prevention community, and so we can continue our work to help us work toward achieving our vision and mission.
We are still working to improve engagement, conversation, and interventions with people in distress to help prevent suicide.
We’re passionate about reducing the incidence and impact of self-harm and suicide. And we are working towards our mission of;
More effective conversations that help reduce distress and fewer lives lost to self-harm and suicide.
