Creating Hope Together: suicide prevention action plan 2022 to 2025

Outcome 2

Outcome 2: Our communities have a clear understanding of suicide, risk factors and its prevention – so that people and organisations are more able to respond in helpful and informed ways when they, or others, need support.

Priority

• Strengthen Scotland’s awareness and responsiveness to suicide and people who are suicidal

Context / Messages

• We recognise the need for individuals, families, communities, workplaces and services to have a better understanding of suicide, so that they can be more confident and responsive to suicidal behaviour and risk.
• Promoting awareness of suicide and reducing stigma is a core element of preventing suicide. We will therefore continue to work to increase awareness of suicide to create a foundation of understanding and compassion in our communities and services, and thereby equip people to respond effectively to someone who is suicidal. It also creates the conditions for people who are feeling suicidal to understand their feelings and feel safe in expressing those to others, knowing they will receive a compassionate, timely response, and the support they need.
• This behaviour change underpins all our work – from prevention and early intervention through to crisis and recovery early intervention, through to crisis and recovery. By embodying the principles of Time, Space and Compassion across our communities and services, we can provide the wrap around support that is needed to prevent suicide – our Everyone’s Business philosophy.
• As with all our work, taking a human rights-based approach and learning from people with lived experience is essential. By empowering people and understanding their experiences we will create the right ways to talk about suicide and ensure people are listened to and well supported.
• Throughout this work we see the potential to focus on priority sectors, settings and communities – where bringing an intensive focus will have the greatest impact on preventing suicide.

What we will keep doing

• Continue to grow Scotland’s suicide prevention social movement, United to Prevent Suicide (UtPS) by encouraging people in communities and organisations – across all sectors – to join the movement and participate
• Continue to run suicide prevention campaigns, at whole population level and targeting specific groups where there is a higher risk of suicide – and ensure national and local campaigns are coordinated to maximise reach and impact, always seeking opportunities to address inequalities. We will also ensure suicide prevention is embedded across wider mental health stigma and service design programmes
• Continue to build learning resources on suicide prevention that responds to the different levels of the Knowledge and Skills Framework on mental health improvement and suicide prevention. Also, deliver local learning through the Scotland-wide facilitation network. We will also complete the review of our learning approach.

New actions

Action area 4: Learning and Building Capacity

Action 4.1: Develop a future programme for the social movement, campaigns, and anti-stigma work (including a focus on tackling workplace stigma).

This programme will be shaped by people with lived experience, by evaluating our social movement and campaigns, by reflecting on emerging good practice, and by drawing on wider learning, for example from See Me. We will also seek to adopt community development approaches to connect and build community led change.

** We consider children and young people will benefit from this action.

Action area 4: Learning and Building Capacity

Action 4.2: Implement actions from the review of the learning approach to suicide prevention to ensure it is fit for purpose and meets the different needs of the workforce and communities alike. This will likely lead to a more tailored and targeted learning approach and resources – including to focus on areas where our approach can achieve the greatest system-wide impact. To support that we propose – as a first step – carrying out at least two tests of change to support learning and support (as follows).

The tests of change will reach groups / communities where there is a heightened risk of suicide by building capacity with local and community groups. We plan to work with trusted organisations to (1) review the design and delivery of learning approaches to ensure they reflect the communities’ experience of suicide, and (2) test new approaches to reaching and supporting people in those communities who are at risk of suicide. As part of this we will seek to better understand help seeking behaviours and tailor support for cultural and diverse groups. We will use the learning to inform our overall approach to supporting communities and groups where suicide risk is high.

Considerations in developing this approach:

• Identify and prioritise key settings within communities to promote learning, for example, schools / further and higher education, welfare services, and within health and care settings: primary care, mental health services, unscheduled care / A&E, community pharmacy, perinatal, women’s health, pain / long term conditions, support for unpaid carers (and embedding suicide prevention as part of the Carers Strategy), palliative care and organisations working in violence against women and girls
• Professional groups may include first / emergency responders, educators (such as counsellors / teachers), and staff in the criminal justice sector
• Consider touchpoints for people in financial distress, seeking welfare support, and marginalised groups
• Respond to the diverse needs and intersectionality of communities, including cultural / social factors, and geographic location
• All approaches and resources should embody principles of Time Space Compassion, and are trauma informed
• Reflects risk and protective factors
• Need to build in continued engagement with communities and key support settings to ensure awareness raising and learning translates into action
• Need to consider from the outset how the effective approaches can be mainstreamed and evaluated.

** We consider children and young people will benefit from this action.

New actions

Action area 4: Learning and Building Capacity

Action 4.3: Support the embedding of the Whole School Approach to Mental Health and the Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing professional learning resource, which includes suicide prevention, and share good practice.

** We consider children and young people will benefit from this action.

Action area 4: Learning and Building Capacity

Action 4.4: Develop existing and new age-appropriate resources for inclusion in the school curriculum which build understanding on mental health, self-harm and suicide prevention and are evidence-informed.

** We consider children and young people will benefit from this action.

Action area 4: Learning and Building Capacity

Action 4.5: Consider how suicide prevention can be embedded in pre-registration training curricula e.g. for health and social care professions, youth work, and teaching staff.

** We consider children and young people will benefit from this action.

Action area 4: Learning and Building Capacity

Action 4.6: Create a portal to host suicide prevention resources and information and advice in one, accessible, digital space – which links to other relevant platforms. The portal should support the needs of:

Individuals, families / friends / carers and anyone affected by suicide – offering a range of self-management advice and tools (including digital), and advice and guidance on where to seek further support

Practitioners working in the field and those with an interest in building their understanding about suicide prevention.

** We consider children and young people will benefit from this action.

Action area 4: Learning and Building Capacity

Action 4.7: Provide reliable and easily digestible information in different formats about suicide and suicide prevention to communities, including to community-based organisations and locations, such as sports and youth organisations, libraries, welfare agencies and community centres. This includes providing accessible information for everyone, including people who do not have English as their first language, or those with learning disabilities.

** We consider children and young people will benefit from this action.

Action area 4: Learning and building capacity

Action 4.8: Increase our understanding and practice around help seeking and help giving to inform suicide prevention approaches. An early learning opportunity is from the current place-based Samaritans / Scottish Government project in West Highlands.

There are links between this work and the actions on responding to the diverse needs of communities and developing new approaches to prevent suicide.