World Suicide Prevention Day takes place on 10 September each year. It provides the opportunity for people across the globe to raise awareness of suicide and suicide prevention.
We ran an all-staff webinar on 6 September to mark World Suicide Prevention Day. The topic of the session was learning from the lived experience of suicidality.
At the webinar, we heard from two experienced speakers from the National Suicide Prevention Alliance Lived Experience Network, who shared their own experiences, learnings and advice.
Our speakers talked about understanding lived experience of suicidality and preventing suicidality.
They highlighted some of the things they’ve found helpful in the past including regular connection and reconnection with staff members, being shown care and compassion even when they tried to push people away and not trying to fix their pain, but to witness and acknowledge it with empathy and kindness.
They also emphasised how, in their own experience in the past, it was very valuable that staff members who supported them always listened to them and most importantly, that they never gave up on them while dealing with suicide.
See right for a list of some upcoming events to learn more about World Suicide Prevention Day. We hope you find this useful.
Suicide prevention: Learning from the lived experience of suicidality