Our Mission
The Jordan Legacy CIC was established in memory of Jordan Phillip who took his own life on December 4th 2019, aged 34.
Research shows that most suicides are preventable.
Our mission is to move towards a society that is willing and able to do all it can to prevent all preventable suicides through collaboration, education and awareness raising.
‘Me and many many thousands more need people like you in our lives. You contribute to saving lives daily. Never ever forget the impact that you have on people who are just about hanging on.”
Suicide can effect anyone, yet everyone can help prevent suicides.
As a society, we must recognise the role we all can play in preventing the biggest killer of men under 50, men and women under 35 and the loss of more than 200 schoolchildren every year.
A ‘Zero Suicide Society’ relies on everyone with a vested interest in preventing suicides to collaborate, to decide to come together to prevent one of the most preventable deaths in the UK and globally.
Our Government, our schools, our workplaces and those in our communities can become beacons of hope by becoming part of the solution.
Here is how we intend to deliver on our mission:
One Voice, One Hope
The Jordan Legacy is taking practical steps to develop a vision for a national community network to encourage greater collaboration amongst those who want to see the numbers of suicides significantly reduce.
Only by collaborating can we turn small pockets of success nationally in preventing suicides into a movement which will see overall suicide numbers finally begin to move on a significant downward trend towards zero.
Most suicides are preventable, so our mission must surely be to prevent most suicides!
For more information about One Voice, One Hope, visit this page on our website.
Education, guidance and research
Talks: we will continue to deliver honest, engaging and educational talks across a variety of locations including workplaces, education centres and community groups. These talks provide an awareness about the impact of suicides and its ripple effect on others, how to spot the signs and engage in a supportive conversation with someone who may be struggling or feeling suicidal.
Events: we will continue hosting online and physical events, including panel discussions, speaker sessions involving other ‘experts’ and those with a lived experience to share their stories and knowledge, including our bi-annual ‘Hope for Life Conference‘.
Strategy and Policy: we will continue to work in partnership with workplaces and education centres to help them develop proactive and response activated suicide prevention strategies. This includes person centred prevention, internal systems and processes and physical infrastructure such as access to means of suicide within a workplace or education centre.
Research and reports – We will continue to work with our collaborative partners to conduct and share research, surveying people’s real-time experiences of suicide and providing a more updated picture of current trends.
Being informative online – we will continue to develop our much praised website presence, including showcasing our Mission, Strategy and our Help & Resources pages. We know these pages are viewed by many of those who need support or guidance relating to varying aspects of mental ill-health or suicide prevention.
We will also continue to keep our followers and subscribers informed about the latest developments in wellbeing, mental health and suicide prevention, intervention and postvention via our newsletters and social media activity.
Our Challenge
The most recent information for 2024 indicates that in the UK, more than 6,000 people die by suicide each year, and this has been the case for the past 16 years with no downward movement in the annual death toll.
We now know that between 2022-23, suicide numbers in the UK increased by an average of 6% – an 8% increase in female suicides, 5% in male suicides, in fact an average increase in suicide deaths across virtually every gender age range.
In each and every case of losing a loved one to suicide, the impact is devastating, as it was with losing Jordan. And the pain of suicide loss endures.
Not everyone is affected by suicide but anyone can be affected by suicide.
There is also a huge ripple effect, which for some time suggested that an average of 135 people are impacted by each suicide death (family, friends, work colleagues, neighbours, etc). which means more than 810,000 people in the UK are affected by a suicide death every year. If Dunbar’s number is applied however, it’s more likely that an average of 150 people are impacted by each suicide. Therefore more than 1 million in the UK in total, each year, compounded year on year.
For each suicide death, around 20 people make suicide attempts. Research suggests that most people who attempt to take their own lives do not want to die, they simply want to escape the intense mental or physical pain they are suffering. People in crisis often feel hopelessly trapped and need support through their crisis.
The reasons people choose to end their lives are often complex and varied. There is often no single contributing factor which causes someone to take this most drastic of actions. What we do know is that many who make suicide attempts do so without letting anyone close to them know they’re considering taking their own life.
How can more people be aware of the signs, in ourselves and others, and better understand how to take action to save lives – through early identification, early intervention, suicide prevention initiatives, ‘postvention’ support for those experiencing loss, and positive promotion of optimal mental health?
How can we work together – those with lived experience of suicide, those already working in suicide prevention, governments, communities, workplaces, etc – to help individuals and groups create hope through action and get the annual suicide death toll on a downward trend, ultimately towards zero?
The Jordan Legacy is a not-for-profit business with purpose. We are a registered (Registered No. 12784768) Community Interest Company (CIC). All income received goes toward our mission of seeking ways of better supporting those who are feeling a sense of entrapment and hopelessness and, specifically, to reduce the number of lives being lost to suicide.
Our Vision
We feel we must have ambition and can envisage an achievable desired state where deaths by suicide are very rare events. It’s a huge challenge and a big goal but achievable through prioritised, focused, practical actions to, for example:
- make our communities and workplaces mentally healthy and psychologically safe places;
- combine human intelligence and digital technology for earlier identification and intervention;
- ‘design out suicide’ (or ‘design in suicide prevention’) in our built environment, education systems, health systems, and support systems for those known to be at risk or in danger (including restricting access to the means of suicide);
- encourage every hospital, university, council, employer, industry association, professional society, etc to make practical plans for suicide prevention within their spheres of influence
- build collaborative relationships with all those who share our belief that we can considerably reduce the number of suicides, with joint action to make that difference.
The act of suicide is a practical act – it needs practical actions to prevent it.
And suicide prevention is a mix of individual action and collective action, with everyone being able to make a contribution – from supporting individuals to collaborating in collective suicide prevention initiatives.
To view the strategy that will ensure we achieve our mission click this link.
“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