Zero Suicides in Schools and Education Centres
If all teaching staff were asked to meet and agree what is an acceptable number of suicides at your school, college or university, what would that number be? It's likely that the response would be zero.
Statistics published by the young person’s charity, Papyrus, show that approximately 200 school children and in a separate study, 100 university students die by suicide every year in the UK.
With an average of 135 people, known to the young victim, impacted by each suicide, in total that’s 40,500 people who are impacted by these suicides, every single year.
For this part of our Zero Suicide strategy, our actions are specifically aimed at engaging with schools, colleges and universities.
Our aim is to continually raise awareness of what actions heads of departments/faculties and teaching staff can undertake to improve the wellbeing of their students and reduce the risk of suicide.
We achieve this by delivering talks on topics like how to have difficult conversations or how to identify when someone is struggling and how to provide the necessary support and signposting.
We will collaborate with wellbeing teams and other staff members to introduce age-appropriate wellbeing, mental health and suicide prevention and postvention strategies, as well as considering how internal policies and procedures impact on the wellbeing and mental health of all students and employees.
At times, we may agree to bring in one of The Jordan Legacy’s approved partners to deliver sessions, which are specifically tailored to your school, college or university.
We will design and run any events, workshops, conferences and educational talks which help raise awareness and also provide practical guidance so that everyone understands how to create and sustain a psychologically safe education centre, where everyone can thrive.
Contact: hello@thejordanlegacy.com
5 practical actions you can take now.
Here are 5 easy to implement actions your school, college or university can start taking today, which would help keep students and staff safe:
- Everyone to take away these 2 key messages: “Anyone can be affected by suicide” and “Everyone can help prevent suicides”.
- Ensure all head teachers/principals, heads of department/faculty heads receive mental health and suicide awareness training – a minimum of 2 Heads of Department/Faculty to be trauma informed and to have undertaken a certification in mental health and suicide prevention training. Click this link to see details of our training partners, Tara Powell and Steve Carr.
- All full-time teaching staff and teaching assistants to be encouraged to take the free, NHS approved, 20-minute online training provided by the Zero Suicide Alliance. Access via this link.
- Ensure that the R;pple Suicide Prevention tool is downloaded to all workplace PC’s and laptop devices which students and staff have access to. Access via this link.
- Ensure effective signposting for teacher, staff and students to their education centre’s wellbeing and mental health support services, and encouraging use of these services, or appropriate external mental health support.
For information and support concerning mental health or suicide related issues, access this link.