Guest Author: Dr. Amy Grosso
In today’s world, understanding suicide requires more than just acknowledging its existence—it necessitates a deep dive into the complexities that surround it. Despite being a critical public health issue, discussions about suicide are often shrouded in stigma and misconceptions, with myths like “talking about it can lead to it” lingering in the public psyche. By examining the multifaceted risk factors and the continuum of mental health, we can start to see the multiple ways each of us can be part of suicide prevention leading to a culture of wellbeing in schools.
Understanding Suicide
The stigma surrounding suicide often silences us, but gaining a deeper understanding is key to fostering open and honest conversations.
Suicide is a multifaceted issue with no single cause. Instead, it is the result of multiple converging risk factors that culminate in a crisis moment. According to the 2023 Suicide Prevention Strategy for England, these risk factors include:
- Physical illness
- Financial difficulty
- Domestic abuse
- Loneliness
- Other mental health issues (e.g. substance misuse)
Understanding these factors can help us approach the topic with the empathy and nonjudgement it deserves.
We often associate suicide only when a student has hit a point of crisis. Because of this thinking, we often only consider our response to these situations as suicide prevention. While support during these critical moments is vital, it’s equally important to provide ongoing assistance to students before it escalates into a crisis. Recognizing the impact of everyday actions, each person’s small, consistent efforts play a crucial role in saving lives.
Understanding Mental Health
To know how to prevent suicide outside of crisis moments, it is critical to understand mental health. According to the World Health Organization, “Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community. It is an integral component of health and well-being that underpins our individual and collective abilities to make decisions, build relationships and shape the world we live in.”
We often describe our wellbeing as good or bad, but the reality is our mental health exists on a continuum. Wellbeing is impacted by an individual’s physical, mental, spiritual, environmental, social and emotional wellness.
Describing a student as either well or unwell oversimplifies the complexities of mental health. We all—students included—fluctuate in the middle of this continuum, always somewhere between coping and struggling.
If a student’s wellbeing is starting to move towards struggling and unwell, appropriate interventions can help the student move back towards Coping and Well.
Suicide prevention extends beyond helping someone in a crisis moment. While we must know what to do if a student is at a crisis point, our ability to help expands exponentially when we identify the early signs and behaviors along the continuum that indicate a student may be struggling.
Suicide Prevention is on a Continuum
Recognizing that mental health exists on a continuum, it is crucial to understand that suicide prevention follows the same spectrum. By identifying risk factors early and addressing them promptly, we can prevent students from reaching a crisis point.
Effective suicide prevention must encompass several key components: prevention, ongoing support, crisis management, and postvention.
Prevention:
To change the narrative surrounding suicide, initiating open dialogues is essential. By integrating mental health and suicide prevention into daily conversations, we can reduce the stigma associated with seeking help. Furthermore, advocating for mental health policy change that genuinely supports student wellbeing is a crucial component of prevention strategies.
Effective suicide prevention policies should outline comprehensive education for staff, students, and parents on mental health and suicide awareness. These policies must include clear procedures for staff to report any noticeable changes in students, ensuring swift intervention by the appropriate personnel.
Ongoing Support:
Effective suicide prevention also includes not only identifying but also supporting vulnerable students. By knowing the risk factors and warning signs, staff can alert the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) in their setting.
Crisis Management:
It’s vital for everyone in an educational setting to know how to respond if a student appears to be in a suicidal crisis. This includes recognizing warning signs such as alarming comments, writings, or drastic behavior changes. Every adult must be aware of the protocols and ensure that no student in crisis is ever left alone.
Postvention:
Postvention strategies must address two critical aspects: support following a student’s suicidal crisis and the response after a student or staff member’s suicide. This ensures that the school community receives the necessary care and guidance during such challenging times.
Role of Technology
Effective safeguarding software can play a pivotal role in helping to monitor concerns around suicide.
CPOMS StudentSafe helps schools uphold and enhance their student wellbeing initiatives. Staff can log concerns, enabling safeguarding leads to manage investigations across all student wellbeing policies such as suicide, self-harm, pastoral care, attendance and more. Robust dashboards and reports available in CPOMS StudentSafe put critical data at your fingertips for more effective collaboration, thorough reporting to Ofsted or Auditors and heightened urgency when referring to the appropriate agencies.
Adding to this, CPOMS Engage provides a platform to support information sharing between schools and local authorities. Safeguarding, child protection, pastoral and welfare information can be shared swiftly and securely across settings via an automated CPOMS Share Contract, facilitating fast and effective crisis support for vulnerable children.
To find out more about how safeguarding software from CPOMS can help put your suicide policy into action, get in touch today.
If you or someone you know is struggling with self-harm or suicidal thoughts, there is help available. Samaritans is a confidential support service available 24/7 for those who need someone to talk to. You can contact them by calling 116 123 or by emailing [email protected]. Samaritans are there to listen, support, and provide guidance in a non-judgmental and confidential manner.
