Suicide prevention

If you are feeling suicidal, there are people you can talk to:

  • speak to a friend, family member or someone you trust
  • call the Samaritans 24-hour support service, tel: 116 123
  • go to your nearest accident and emergency (A&E) department and tell the staff how you are feeling
  • contact NHS 111
  • make an urgent appointment to see your GP

World Suicide Prevention Day

Suicide prevention is everyone’s business.  World Suicide Prevention Day is always on 10 September each year when organisations and communities around the world come together to raise awareness to create a world where fewer people die by suicide. 

To support the day in 2022 several football clubs across Derbyshire and Derby held awareness raising activities at football matches, including Chesterfield FC, Alfreton Town FC, Belper Town FC, Matlock Town FC, Sheffield FC. 

Staff and volunteers engaged fans at 5 matches by handing out club-specific leaflets, raising awareness and having conversations, which directly impacted around fans on the matchdays.  This activity will directly impact several thousand fans at football grounds on the match-days. In addition, awareness will also be raised with many more people before and after through club match activity and social and other media.  Derby County FC also supported the suicide prevention agenda.

In 2019 both Chesterfield FC and Derby County FC each developed a film involving players promoting suicide prevention, which were shown on their big screens during half time on their match days in 2019.

Suicide prevention in Derbyshire

The Derbyshire Self-Harm and Suicide Prevention Partnership Forum (DSSPP) allows organisations from across Derbyshire to work together and help tackle the issue of suicide. The partnership’s vision is that as few people as possible will die from suicide across Derby and Derbyshire.

Suicide prevention information and resources

The Identifying and responding to suicide clusters resource, based on research of suicide clusters, is part of Public Health England's support for the government’s suicide prevention strategy.

Derby and Derbyshire Emotional Health and Wellbeing have gathered resources about suicide prevention and postvention.

The Suicide-safer universities guide provides a framework to understand student suicide, mitigate risk, intervene when students get into difficulties, and respond to these tragic deaths. It sets out the steps you can take to make your community suicide-safer.

The Tomorrow Project is a confidential suicide prevention project that has been set up to support individuals and communities to prevent suicide. The project currently delivers a suicide crisis service and a police-referral suicide bereavement service.

Samaritans have launched a new awareness campaign called 'Real People, Real Stories' aimed at men aged 20 to 59 years old. The campaign involves men who have overcome tough times sharing their stories to encourage men, who are most at risk of suicide, to seek help by contacting Samaritans.

Together with the Derbyshire Suicide Prevention Partnership forum we've produced a poster, leaflet and z-card with information and advice for how you can help if someone is feeling suicidal. These documents are attached to this page.

Free suicide and mental awareness training in Derbyshire

Zero Suicide Alliance has free suicide awareness training that teaches people how to identify, understand and help someone who may be experiencing suicidal thoughts.  Posters with a QR code and a link to Zero Suicide Alliance’s suicide awareness training webpage are attached to this page for you to download and display.

Free mental health awareness training is available that is primarily focused at  staff and volunteers who aren't qualified mental health professionals. It reflects a whole-system cross-sector workforce approach to prevention and support, and reinforces that mental health is everyone's business.

Suicide postvention support pack for Primary Care in Derbyshire

A postvention is an intervention conducted after a suicide, largely taking the form of support for the bereaved (family, friends, professionals and peers). Suicide has a ripple effect on the community and those most affected are at increased risk of suicide themselves.

A suicide survivor is anyone who experiences high levels of self-perceived psychological, physical and or social distress after the suicide regardless of the social relationship with the person. The dual objectives of suicide postvention are to alleviate the effects of this complex grief, and to prevent suicide in the survivors.

To help manage the aftermath of a death by suicide a postvention support pack for Primary Care in Derbyshire has been developed. The information in the pack is aimed at individual practice surgeries but may also be useful to primary care networks or federations. The pack takes you through the steps required as a Practice and provides information on how to support anyone affected by the death, including family members, friends or staff.

Bereavement support

Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide is a self-help organisation who help to meet the needs and break the isolation experienced by those bereaved by suicide. SOBS have local support groups across the UK including local support groups in Derbyshire where individuals can meet with other people who have been bereaved by suicide. They provide an opportunity to listen, to share, to ask questions, and to connect with others.

In the How does grief feel video, Tina, Dan, Tasneem and Ella share their experiences of grief. If you’ve been bereaved, you might find there are some things you can relate to. But you might find your experience is different – and that’s OK too.

Writer and podcaster Nora McInerny shares her hard-earned wisdom about life and death in her video We don't move on from grief, we move forward with it. Her candid approach to something that will affect us all and is as liberating as it is gut-wrenching. Most powerfully, she encourages us to shift how we approach grief.

Research suggests that around a third of suicides takes place outside the home, in a public location. This means the impact of suicide can reach far beyond friends and family, to those who may have been at, or first to, the location. First Hand is a free online resource for anyone affected by witnessing a suicide when they did not know the person who has died. This may be because someone happened to be at a particular location or because their job involves responding to these incidents. First Hand was developed by the Grassroots Team in partnership with the Sussex Health and Care Partnership, Thrive LDN and the Support after Suicide Partnership.

The Help is at Hand guide provides people who have been bereaved by suicide with both emotional and practical support. The guide is designed to be given out by bereavement support organisations and by those who are likely to be first on the scene after a suspected suicide, including police and ambulance staff.

The inquest handbook is a free and trusted guide for bereaved families and friends affected by a sudden death that involves an inquest. It is a complete and easy-to-understand resource, which can be used by families and bereavement professionals.

The inquest online skills and support toolkit is an interactive resource that aims to build a range of skills, from organising information relating to the inquest, speaking in public, to handling media attention.  Whether you need help researching the inquest process, keeping a diary of important dates or contacting an MP, this resource provides can help answer your questions.

Few people like to talk about death, and many of us feel awkward around someone who has been bereaved, even if they’re a good friend or close colleague.  Alongside our uncertainty about how we should react to a bereavement, is the fact that people bereaved by suicide have significantly less chance of receiving support from friends and family, and there are limited suicide bereavement support services.  The Finding the words guide could help make you feel more comfortable about reaching out to someone bereaved by suicide.

Derbyshire Mental Health Helpline and Support Service

Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has produced a help in a crisis poster with information about what to do if you or someone you know has thoughts of purposely hurting themselves, putting themselves in danger or ending their life. The poster is attached to this page.

The Derbyshire Mental Health Helpline and Support Service is a freephone service available to everyone living in Derbyshire - both young people and adults. It is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you or someone you know are experiencing distress or anxiety, or feeling that you cannot cope, you can contact the service for support over the phone, tel: 0800 028 0077. That support could be about your mental health, but you can also talk through practical issues that may be causing concern. A poster about the service is attached to this page.

Information for professionals

There are 2 documents attached to this page to assist professionals with supporting someone who has suicidal thoughts or ideation.

  • ‘Derbyshire – how to help someone who has suicidal ideation’ is an aide-memoire with some simple steps for supporting someone who expresses suicidal thoughts, which has been developed by Derbyshire Healthcare Foundation Trust (DHCFT) and Derbyshire Community Healthcare Services (DCHS) in partnership with the Derbyshire Self-harm and Suicide Prevention Partnership Forum
  • the ‘Suicidal thoughts – how to support someone’ factsheet is a more detailed guide on how to support someone with suicidal thoughts, which has been developed by Rethink Mental Illness