National Suicide Prevention Advisory Group Annual Report 2023/2024

3. NSPAG Engagement 2023/24 and What We Have Heard

“The session we had – and the individual journeys – of members of the lived and living experience panel will stay with me forever. A stark and thought-provoking reminder of why we are here and why the title of this strategy is so apt.” Catherine McWilliam, NSPAG member

Our first NSPAG annual report is based on our wide range of activities, engagement, meetings and reports received during the last year. We are deeply grateful to all those who have given us their time and have generously shared their personal experiences as well as their professional knowledge and skills with us. Their passion to make a difference and save lives has been a constant theme and has helped us immeasurably.

It is clear to us in coming together and establishing our own role as an advisory group that suicide prevention really is everyone’s business and that in every aspect of our communities, services and society we in Scotland all have a role to play in saving lives from suicide and the tragedy it brings.

3.1 Lived and Living Experience of the Impacts of Suicide

Lived and Living Experience Panel and Youth Advisory Group

“I think engaging with the NSPAG was great! Going into it I felt very scared and nervous and going into a room full of professionals and people who are very successful and knowledgeable but after I got over the nervousness and we actually had a conversation it felt the same as talking to a friend. I felt it was valuable as it showed me that people were actually interested in what I had to say and what young people have to say. Everyone in the room wanted to hear our opinions and you could actually see that they were.” Youth Advisory Group member

The NSPAG believes that the experience, knowledge and passion of people with lived and living experience of the impacts of suicide must be at the heart of this work. We understand that the National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group 2018-2022 (NSPLG) had set up a Lived Experience Panel (since renamed the Lived and Living Experience Panel (LLEP)) and Youth Advisory Group (YAG) which were already well-established when development of the current suicide prevention strategy began.

We understand that members of these two important groups were engaged throughout development of the Suicide Prevention Strategy 2022-2032 and that this collaboration was broadened by seeking the views of other people with lived and living experience of suicide through wider online and in-person events across the country, supplemented by an open consultation process.

Our NSPAG terms of reference specifically set out our own responsibility to maintaining strong working relationships with the LLEP, the YAG and the Suicide Prevention Academic Advisory Group (AAG), the Chair of which attends each of our meetings. Importantly and foundationally, we have committed to ensuring that our work is informed in equal measure by evidence by experience, practice insights, data and academic research.

Earlier this year we welcomed members of the LLEP and YAG to share their thoughts with us on two points: what is important to them in our work together to prevent suicide, and what they want the NSPAG to think about in its advisory role. Three specific issues stood out in that conversation:

• Firstly, members of the LLEP and YAG spoke passionately of the need to tackle the stigma that prevents people – particularly children, young people and men – from talking about suicide and about how they are feeling, and specifically prevents them from seeking help. We heard that stigma also contributes to people across society lacking confidence to know how to raise concerns about others and how to offer help.
• Secondly, members of the LLEP and YAG spoke from their own experience of the importance of tackling not only immediate suicidal crisis but also the circumstances which can continue to put people at risk over longer periods of time, taking them into crisis again. We were told how important it is that people can access safe spaces and compassionate services at the point when they need them, that those services should be joined up, and that peer support should be available to help people in all communities maintain their wellbeing and reduce suicide risk over time.
• Thirdly, members of the LLEP and YAG emphasised to us that everyone has different experiences and that each person’s individual diversity – including but not exclusively – factors such as cultural differences, differences in social status, age and life stages, understanding of mental health and history of suicide, requires all support for individuals at risk of suicide to be person-focussed.

As well as engaging directly with people with lived and living experience of suicide, members of the NSPAG have participated alongside them in various events and heard their voices in national suicide prevention campaigns and media coverage of suicide prevention. We have heard and seen evidence of regular and extensive consultation with the LLEP and YAG by Suicide Prevention Scotland, and of active co-design and co-production.

Collaboration with people closest to the risk, crisis and tragedy of suicide must continue to be strong, respectful and to result in meaningful influence on and engagement in suicide prevention policy and action.

We therefore welcome the commitment of the Scottish Government and COSLA in the suicide prevention strategy to continuing to fund and support the LLEP and YAG. We consider it helpful that the work of these two seminal groups is in turn supported by a Lived and Living Experience Steering Group (LLESG) which has as its vision to “work to ensure that the voices of adults, children and young people with lived and living experience of suicide are heard, valued and central to the successful delivery” of the suicide prevention strategy.

Members of the LLEP and YAG have told the NSPAG this year that they believe they are using their experiences to make positive change, create hope and save lives from suicide, but also that they have found making change is slow and takes time. We believe it to be absolutely critical to the continuing legitimacy of the suicide prevention strategy and for the effectiveness of its implementation that lived and living experience of the impacts of suicide remain at its heart.

3.2 Suicide Prevention Practitioners and Community

Suicide Prevention Scotland Delivery Collective

“The important of truly listening to those with lived experience cannot be underestimated. The efforts made across the delivery landscape to engage with lived experience via individual and organisational routes, to date has been encouraging. I will continue to champion meaningful engagement and participation with lived experience experts.” Louise Hunter, NSPAG member

At each of our NSPAG meetings, the minutes of which are published online, we have received in-person updates on the work of the Suicide Prevention Scotland delivery collective. The collective was established by Scottish Government and COSLA as the partnership vehicle to deliver the suicide prevention strategy and also to provide a Scotland-wide community for everyone striving to prevent suicide.

Within Suicide Prevention Scotland the Scottish Government and COSLA have appointed Strategic Outcome Leads for each of the four outcomes in the strategy, and a National Delivery Lead to oversee, co-ordinate and be accountable for progress.

We have appreciated this year the constructive way the Suicide Prevention Scotland National Delivery Lead and Strategic Outcome Lead partners have engaged with us, at a time when they have been also establishing themselves in their own new roles. Their professional insights into suicide prevention policy and practice and personal openness concerning their plans and progress have informed our views and advice, including where we see wider engagement and collaboration opportunities to drive sustainable progress in embedding suicide prevention across society in Scotland.

NSPAG members have participated in a number of suicide prevention events during 2023/24. This has enabled us to meet in person and engage directly with people across the broader suicide prevention community, including with those who bring lived and living experience of the impacts of suicide, with suicide prevention practitioners such as local suicide prevention leads across Scotland and with those working in other sectors where social determinants drive suicide risk.

The first national conference organised by Suicide Prevention Scotland, the Creating Hope Together Conference held in Glasgow in March 2024, was attended by a number of NSPAG members including the Chair, Catherine McWilliam (Scotland Director, Institute of Directors) and Brendan Rooney (Chief Executive, Healthy n Happy Community Development Trust). NSPAG member Peter Kelly (Director of the Poverty Alliance) chaired a panel session on the use of evidence in shaping the strategic response to suicide and NSPAG member Louise Hunter (Chief Executive of Who Cares? Scotland) chaired a discussion on how to reduce suicide risk in the care experienced community.

Throughout 2023/24 NSPAG members have also participated in a range of consultation and delivery development events organised by Suicide Prevention Scotland, so as to inform our understanding of progress on delivery of the suicide prevention strategy, and how that delivery is being achieved.

3.3 Suicide Prevention Research, Data and Academic Advice

Academic Advisory Group

“The amount that has been delivered this year is phenomenal, especially given the context of pressure everyone has been working under.” Professor Rory O’Connor, Chair, Suicide Prevention Academic Advisory Group

As members of the NSPAG we are grateful to have had the benefit, since our initial meeting and throughout 2023/24, of expert academic insight into suicide prevention through advice provided by the Suicide Prevention Scotland AAG.

When we first came together as the NSPAG in June 2023 we were joined at our introductory meeting by the (then) Co-Chairs of the AAG, Professor Rory O’Connor, (Professor of Health Psychology and Director of the Suicidal Behaviour Research Laboratory, University of Glasgow) and Professor Steve Platt (Emeritus Professor of Health Policy Research, University of Edinburgh). They provided us with a detailed academic overview of suicide in Scotland and have throughout 2023/24 been unremittingly helpful in attending all our formal meetings, answering our many questions and in providing access to academic research and perspectives as needed.

The data, research and advice of the AAG, taken together with the insights of those who have direct lived and living experience of the impacts of suicide and the perspective of suicide prevention practitioners, enable us to meet our commitment to ensuring that all our NSPAG work is informed in equal measure by evidence by experience, practice insights, data and academic research.

In this annual report we would like to pay particular tribute to Professor Steve Platt, who recently retired from his roles as Chair of the Scottish Suicide Information Database and as Co-Chair of the AAG, for his lifelong contribution to suicide prevention and more personally for his tireless help to us. It has been abundantly clear to us that the extent of his knowledge of suicide and suicide prevention internationally has been matched by his passion for ensuring that academic research and data contribute effectively to reducing risk and saving lives from the tragedy of suicide.

3.4 Suicide Prevention National Delivery Lead

National Delivery Lead Annual Report 2023/24

“Strengthening communities is precisely the sort of investment that should be made when times are tough. I consider it a reasonable hypothesis that socio-economic benefits flow from that sort of investment and that savings will be made elsewhere in health, criminal justice, the courts and prisons. I am sure it saves lives.” Sheriff David Mackie, NSPAG member

In formulating our own NSPAG Annual Report 2023/24 we have considered carefully the National Delivery Lead Annual Report 2023/24, which describes the work undertaken over the last year and provides an update on progress in delivering the suicide prevention Delivery Plan 2023/24 as part of the suicide prevention Action Plan 2022-2025.

The National Delivery Lead reports that the foundational work set out in the Delivery Plan 2023/24 has been achieved, and we want to express our wholehearted appreciation and gratitude to all those who have made this possible. We can see clear evidence in 2023/24 of lived and living experience influence continuing to strengthen suicide prevention action, of commitment to learning and evidence-based practice, and of reach and buy-in building across communities, multi-sectoral partners, national and local government.

In this first year strong foundations have been built with limited resource and against a challenging fiscal environment, with the focus understandably on development work such as establishing connections, building relationships and laying down enablers for the future. In addition, this year has also seen work which began under the previous Suicide Prevention Action Plan 2018-2022: Every Life Matters continue and be brought into the Suicide Prevention Scotland delivery collective framework.

The Suicide Prevention Strategy 2022-2032 includes the vision that “all sectors must come together in partnership” and we commend the collaborative leadership culture at the heart of the Suicide Prevention Scotland delivery collective as it has become established in 2023/24.

In providing our advice to the Scottish Government and COSLA we must emphasise how critical it now is to ensure this initial momentum is sustained over the next nine years if the vision of the suicide prevention strategy is to achieve measurable progress and lives are to be saved from suicide. The key enabler for this will of course be sustained resourcing which matches the ambition and vision of the strategy itself.

The National Delivery Lead Annual Report 2023/24 draws attention to the pressures across public sector systems and how these have had an impact on the pace of delivery of the suicide prevention strategy during its first year. This is of course unlikely to change in the short/medium term and makes commitment, prioritisation and clarity of resourcing even more critical in terms of future planning and pace of delivery.

More broadly, the passion for suicide prevention and deep expertise evident to us throughout the last year are of course absolutely necessary if the vision of the strategy to reduce suicide deaths whilst tackling the inequalities which contribute to suicide is to become reality in Scotland, but they are not in themselves sufficient without capacity.

The Suicide Prevention Strategy 2022-2032 commits to building an approach to suicide prevention which engages all sectors and all communities. Every sector and community will therefore require not only the will, confidence and capability to contribute, but also the sustained capacity to do so, which in turn requires certainty of effective resourcing.