Suicide prevention strategy development: early engagement - summary report

Engagement Process

To gather as many views as possible, and to encourage participation in the development process, a series of online workshops were organised, which ran alongside an online questionnaire. There was an open invitation to share views and this gained input from professionals across various fields, as well as members of the public with an interest in suicide prevention. The engagement process also sought to ensure that the voices of those with lived experience were heard.

41 online workshops were held, with some of these having a regional focus and the rest a national focus. Organisations, groups and individuals could self-select which type of event they wanted to attend. Participants could also attend more than one event, depending on what they wanted to focus on.

The survey received 190 responses, 162 responses from individuals, as well as 28 responses from organisations across the public and third sectors working in areas including mental health and wellbeing, children and young people’s services, and social care.

Both data collection processes asked for views on the current situation from their perspective and sought to identify innovative ideas and best practice. Participants were also asked to identify priority areas for future action.

Responses were sought in relation to several themes:

• suicide prevention
• early intervention
• crisis intervention
• postvention
• tackling stigma
• raising awareness
• capacity building.

Respondents to the survey and attendees at the workshops were also asked about other policy areas, outwith health and social care, that ought to be involved in suicide prevention, such as housing, addiction, and poverty and to provide examples of effective practice both locally, nationally and internationally. Please note the terms ‘respondent’ and ‘participant’ are used interchangeably and are not reflective of engagement channel.