National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group (NSPLG): third annual report

Progress 2020-2021

• In September 2020 we launched Scotland's new social movement and public awareness campaign, United to Prevent Suicide, co-produced with our Lived Experience Panel. It is aimed at reducing stigma and encouraging people to have confidence to talk about suicide.

• In February 2021 our Academic Advisory Group (AAG) completed a review of the first two years of the Every Life Matters. It concluded that there was clear evidence of progress, wide collaboration, and positive engagement of lived experience. However, it also identified delays caused by the pandemic and highlighted the need for continuing evaluation, monitoring, learning and a focus on outcomes.

• In April we published our guidance on local suicide prevention action planning in collaboration with COSLA. The guidance provides information required to develop robust, effective and sustainable local suicide prevention action plans.

• In June our Lived Experience Panel, supported by SAMH, was cited in the World Health Organization implementation guide for suicide prevention, as an internationally significant case study in meaningful participation of people with lived experience in suicide prevention work.

• In August our pilot service to support people bereaved by suicide went live in the NHS Ayrshire and Arran and NHS Highland areas. Penumbra and Support in Mind Scotland are working in partnership to deliver this service, providing practical and emotional support to families who have lost a loved one to suicide. Its evaluation will inform plans for future roll-out.

• During this pandemic year we worked with Public Health Scotland and NHS Education for Scotland to develop a range of online learning resources promoting awareness and learning on mental health, suicide prevention, and self-harm.

• In response to our June 2020 COVID-19 Statement recommendation on the need for more timely and local data, Public Health Scotland and Police Scotland have this year started to roll-out a new system providing local areas with regular data on suspected suicides. This data offers further valuable intelligence to support local planning.

• We are currently working with NHS 24 and other partners to establish new ways of providing appropriate digital advice and safeguarding for people seeking help online during a time of crisis, offering a gateway to engage wider support services.

• During this year we have been working with community-engaged individuals and representative organisations, such as Poppy Scotland, to better understand the experience of seldom-heard people and communities, and the impacts of inequalities, to inform the full range of our work.
  
• We are committed to ensuring that all our support for the implementation of Every Life Matters is informed by children and young people to ensure their needs are met, and we continue to identify opportunities to further meet children and young people's needs across the actions. To support this focus, we are in the process of setting up a new NSPLG Youth Advisory Group, which will operate alongside our Lived Experience Panel. We are also engaging with other national pieces of work, such as The National Childhood Bereavement Project, to ensure children and young people's needs are considered in terms of suicide prevention.

• Our work on developing a new approach to providing timely help and support to people in suicidal crisis has resulted in a set of key principles: Time, Space, and Compassion. These principles were the result of the clear messages from our engagement with those with lived experience and those working in the field of suicide prevention. If embedded effectively into existing and new responses, these principles could radically change the experiences of those who need support at a time of crisis.