Project Soul Stride

#suicideprevention #mentalhealth #safeguarding

With World Suicide Prevention Day approaching, it has never been more important to be aware of the facts. *additional insights provided by Louis Appleby: ONS suicide rates are based on when a death is registered. Half the deaths registered in 2023 occurred in 2022. The legal definition of suicide was widened in 2018. Rates ⬆️ by 12%, affecting long-term trends. #suicideprevention https://lnkd.in/eJaTxade

The NIHR (National Institute for Health and Care Research) recently launched two key resources for Patient Public Involvement (PPI) in #selfharm and #suicideprevention research. I had the pleasure of being one of the speakers of you’re interested in listening to my dulcet tones. 🫣 Thanks Dr Leah Quinlivan CPsychol, AFBPsS for the opportunity to share my thoughts. #patientinvolvement #livedexperience #speaker

Suicide Prevention Month Event!! I want to invite you all to a SAMHSA webinar called "Answering the Call: Empowering Communities to Prevent Suicide among Black Youth" happening September 25th at 2 PM. We're going to chat about the work of SAMHSA's Black Youth Suicide Prevention Initiative. Then we're going to be having conversations with some dynamic Black young adults and a some amazing subject matter experts to talk about ways to support our youth!! Use the QR code or this link to register. I'll share the list of participants as it gets closer. Come back throughout September for more Suicide Prevention Month updates!! - https://lnkd.in/eE-us--t

We started as a handful of volunteers with an idea to offer free, in-person, ongoing support for people feeling suicidal. Now we're open 9am - 9pm, 7 days a week across three sites with more than 800 volunteers delivering appointments. No matter how many referrals we receive, our vision remains the same: we exist to ensure that anyone who feels life is no longer worth living can find a confidential place with a compassionate listener who will give them time.

What an amazing #livedexperience opportunity this is. Would you like to develop and deliver a workshop to Mind staff? They are looking for 3 people with lived experience to come together to develop and deliver an interactive workshop for Mind staff at their annual online staff conference, focused on what you think Mind needs to hear. They will provide support and training throughout. Find out more about the opportunity and how to apply here. The closing date for applications is end of day Sunday 8 September. #mentalhealth #coproduction #conference https://lnkd.in/duExw9Eb

Suicide Myths 自殺迷思 💭 We hope for a world where, across the population, there is a deep awareness, knowledge and understanding of suicide and suicide prevention and that everyone has the opportunity to access training. We hope that one day, suicide and suicide prevention will be openly discussed with sensitivity and without shame or stigma. And that everyone understands that anyone can be affected by suicide and that suicide can be prevented if we know how to recognise the signs and what steps to take. We hope that alongside accessible mental health care, people can access a range of services in their community, including peer support groups, physical safe spaces, social activity groups, outdoor activities, mental health and wellbeing third-sector support, and social support. We are not suggesting that all suicides are preventable or that this is easy to achieve. Despite every effort of loved ones and all those involved in care and suicide prevention, some people will end their own lives. Our content is not intended to be relied upon as a substitute for professional mental health advice. To learn more about suicide prevention please visit our website: https://lnkd.in/gfVM74yg #mentalhealth #grief #loss #suicideprevention #hongkong

Check out the social hub that was Co-produced for Cygnet Churchill which is a male mental health service in Lambeth, London. This was one of our first social hubs after the success we had at Cygnet Bierley and they have become a big hit with service users up and down the country. We talk a lot about peer support and the built environment in the sector, perhaps a good starting point is supporting people from different wards to chill out and create friendships in a non-clinical feeling space, particularly on evenings and weekends where activities have historically been lacking in the sector. As a service user, the ward can become a bubble, it is difficult to envision other places, the ward upstairs can seem like another planet as you may have heard about it for a long time but have never seen it. Whilst supporting people experiencing mental distress, we need to make sure we are not creating other psychological constraints in how people view the world and interact with others. Reducing restrictive practice has finally shifted from when I first started working in the sector, we have come a long way from what felt were discussions solely focussed on incident management and restraint, seclusion etc. After what feels like a decade of evolution and the widening of discussions to include blanket rules and getting to a place where RRP is common practice, we are now seeing how this all translates into real changes more broadly and how this is now having a positive impact on the built environment, meaningful activity, service user AND staff experience… and ultimately recovery. I spent well over two thousand days as an in-patient and even more working in the sector speaking to people to create hope and drive meaningful change, supporting other former services into doing the same, through becoming experts by experience. I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly of services but I have also seen the sector grow and change, just like many of the old timers reading this who once remember smoking rooms (well before my time!). This space represents so much, what we can achieve through co-production, how experts by experience can add value, what all those conversations around reducing restrictive practice really mean… but also how far we have come as a sector.

As if we're having to say this in 2024, but we’ll say it again because stigma has real world consequences: 📢 mental health problems are real 📢 the national mental health crisis is real There have been some recent stigmatising articles about mental health that lack facts and evidence. So let’s talk about the facts. The number of people detained under the Mental Health Act has been growing for years (exhibit A, the graph). Let's be clear, this only happens if you're very unwell. This is a growing crisis, not a problem of over diagnosis. The prevalence of mental health problems among young people keeps going up and up 2017: 1 in 9 young people had a mental health problem 2021: 1 in 6 young people 2023: 1 in 5 young people… And this is a fact, it’s from NHS research. Personal Independence Payment is not about whether you can work, it's about the additional cost of living with a long term health condition or disability. But while we're on the topic of work - being too unwell to work is not a choice. Those of us who have struggled with our mental health or supported our loved ones with their mental health know the true reality. Stigmatising articles without facts or evidence do nobody any good. Stigma has devastating real world consequences like shame, isolation, exclusion and ultimately puts barriers in the way of getting the support we need. This is already a huge obstacle, particularly for those of us severely affected by mental health problems. We've come a long way as a society to tackle mental health stigma, and there's still a long way to go, let's not start going backwards.

Join us at our webinar with speakers sharing how they provide a social response to those struggling with suicidal thoughts, often those falling through the net of care. I'll be sharing our findings from the HSJ Award winning North West London Suicide Prevention Programme - Learn how #ExpertsbyExperience led the way... #suicideprevention #coproduction : https://lnkd.in/eHUNCuQR