One Voice, One Hope
A national community network to encourage greater collaboration amongst those who want to see the numbers of suicides significantly reduce.
On September 23rd 2024, The Jordan Legacy hosted an online event and panel discussion to a registered audience of more than 300 people and organisations. A recording of the webinar “One Voice, One Hope” can be viewed via this link.
What is the vision for this network?
A free to join network, providing a psychologically safe space for those impacted by suicide to come together, online and physically, in a supportive environment, to share their experiences, knowledge and resources to help prevent all preventable suicides.
Strength in numbers; to increase the reach and visibility of individual and collective projects and campaigns and provide a voice for those who don’t usually have one.
Lived experience at the foundation; those who have been bereaved, those who have attempted suicide and survived and those who have witnessed a suicide or suicide attempt.
Individual community network groups working collaboratively on different areas of suicide prevention, feeding into a central national network.
An opportunity to potentially drive change more quickly, through action-centred community leadership.
Feedback from the webinar
What did we learn?
Feedback from the webinar, chat transcripts, post event online surveys and individual conversations with others operating in the suicide prevention space indicated that there is an overwhelming desire for something new and different to be created, which would enable people to come together, as a community, to network and feel supported and for others, to be able to work collaboratively on initiatives to prevent suicides.
Who would be involved in such a network?
During the webinar on September 23rd, it was noticeable that the event wasn’t attended by any of ‘big charities’ and that a large proportion of those who joined the session were grassroots organisations and smaller charities/CIC’s etc.
Many who fed back, were those who felt they don’t always get a seat at the more familiar suicide prevention tables and their voices are either not heard or not acknowledged. Some felt that the suicide prevention landscape was confusing and there was uncertainty about who they should align with. Some wanted a safe space to engage and share their stories and hear from others about theirs.
There were also a number of comments about the competitive nature of suicide prevention in the UK.
As mentioned above, for some, a community network means simply having somewhere they can come together and be with like-minded people or those who share similar lived experience of suicide. Others felt collaborating with others on specific projects or campaigns was important – ‘everyone would benefit if we shared our knowledge and resources with each other.’
One suggestion is that by pooling resources, it may be possible to reduce competition, particularly when so many smaller third sector organisations are chasing (most unsuccessfully) the same funding pots.
Transcending the current norm
One Voice, One Hope envisions a diverse community of those wanting to reduce the annual numbers of suicides in the UK, which would work alongside the bigger charities and the government but transcend these bodies by creating a movement not previously experienced in suicide prevention within the UK.
You only have to look at the significant interest in next year’s second Baton of Hope Tour to understand how many grassroots charities are eager to be a part of something bigger than themselves, whilst not losing site of their own particular reason for wanting to prevent anyone else dying suicide.
Imagine a community network of grassroots charities, aligned with initiatives like the Baton of Hope, the Hub of Hope, Speak Their Name and other hugely impactful initiatives, all working collaboratively with one voice.
We need your support to help make the vision for One Voice become a reality.
UK residents can donate by scanning this QR code.
“Your resilience is inspiring. Jordans legacy is saving many lives and restoring faith in many people lives. After attending the conference in February 2021, it changed my life, after nearly losing a son to a failed suicide attempt.” Mark
Can we model other positive examples?
In October 2024, Founder of The Jordan Legacy, Steve Phillip, met with the Suicide Prevention Lead for COSLA and the Scottish Government, to get a better understanding of Scotland’s approach to suicide prevention. Scotland has experienced encouraging reductions in suicide deaths in the past, although based on 2022 data, Scotland had the highest rate of suicide deaths of all countries in the UK at 14.0 deaths per 100,000 people.
Haylis Smith told me how, initially, Scotland’s National Suicide Prevention strategy worked well but they recognised that they were not involving local smaller charities, CIC’s etc or other diverse and under-represented groups. They also recognised the need to engage the wider suicide prevention community and the roles played in helping prevent suicides by education centres, workplaces and communities.
The new Scottish Suicide Prevention Strategy has had massive public engagement, including an online consultation which was responded to by 800-900 people.
They also involved their lived experience panel and youth advisory groups and are now working on Suicide Prevention Scotland, a collective which includes smaller charities, supported by a totally independent advisory group which is focused on inequalities of suicide prevention and includes members who come from usually ignored groups and those with protected characteristics.
In January 2024, in Edinburgh, the Gathering Hope Event aimed to provide an opportunity for third sector organisations working at local level across Scotland to come together, network, share learning and to help shape suicide prevention approaches through their experiences. A venue to accommodate 250 was booked but by January, it was clear they could have filled that venue twice over.
You can view an annual report from Suicide Prevention Scotland, which covers progress on the first year of delivery of Scotland’s Suicide Prevention Strategy, Creating Hope Together by clicking this link.
The Jordan Legacy can see many similarities in aspects of Scotland’s approach to suicide prevention and the vision we have for One Voice, One Hope.
What’s next?
We recognise that The Jordan Legacy doesn’t have all the answers and those we do have may not receive agreement from everyone and that’s ok.
However, we are committed to listening to the voices of those we seek to collaborate with and those who are often not included in determining how we get the suicide numbers on a downward trend, towards zero.
One of the next steps will be to form a steering group, which we want to ensure has a diverse membership. This means including those groups and individuals who are often under-represented and/or those with protected characteristics.
The steering group will be important in helping us develop the framework for One Voice, One Hope.
We will need support to help achieve this vision.
We now need to raise funds to enable us to devote the time and resources required to develop One Voice, One Hope and to this end, we have created (for UK residents) a new JustGiving page – click here to donate.
If you wish to make a donation to support our mission using credit/debit card or via PayPal, you can do so by visiting our website: https://thejordanlegacy.com/ and selecting the orange ‘Donate’ button.
Your support will be vital in helping is achieve our Mission, which is to move towards a Zero Suicide Society, one that is willing and able to do all it can to prevent all preventable suicides.
Please support our vision for One Voice, One Hope.
UK residents can donate by scanning this QR code.