Suicide Prevention Advisory Group: Students Wanted
Merseyside Youth Association’s RAISE Team, in partnership with Liverpool City Council Public Health, Mersey Care and Champs Public Health Collaborative, are inviting students to join a new suicide prevention advisory group.
The group will work with the team to explore and review the range of suicide prevention and safety plan training and resources currently available. The aim is to identify if these resources are relevant to the student population, what can be adapted, and if there are opportunities to create new campaigns and bespoke training materials.
What’s the commitment?
If you’re interested in taking part in this valuable piece of work, you’ll be invited to attend one of two sessions: September (virtual) and October (virtual/face-to-face optional). In these sessions, we’ll look at the existing resources and training materials, and you’ll be asked to make recommendations to align the content to a student audience.
The benefits
We’re also looking to educate students on how they can strengthen their own resilience and offer support to friends and peers experiencing feelings of mental distress and suicide or self-harm. You’ll learn potentially life-saving skills that will give you the confidence to hold valuable conversations, help to keep them safe, and signpost to the relevant professional services if necessary.
You will receive a gift voucher and travel expenses for your time.
Why is this so important?
In 2021 alone, over 37,500 people in Cheshire and Merseyside were affected by suicide. The World Health Organisation highlights suicide as a major public health risk, being the fourth leading cause of death for 15 to 19-year-olds worldwide.
Official estimates suggest 64 students killed themselves in England and Wales in the 2019-20 academic year. Source: BBC
In the UK, suicide prevention has been a focus of government policy, with additional funding to regions to support prevention. There has been an overall trend upwards of young people dying by suicide nationally since 2010. This has been a concern raised and explored by NCISH.
Whilst the number of suicides in children and young people is still small in Cheshire and Merseyside, the numbers in younger age groups have increased. In the 2021 data on suspected suicides for Cheshire and Merseyside, 7.6% of cases were in under 25-year-olds, and there were cases reported in the under 15s. Source: SUICIDE PREVENTION STRATEGY Cheshire & Merseyside 2022-2027
Interested?
Click here to register your interest.
