From barbers to taxi drivers… Community urged to take lead in suicide prevention

Friday 28 February 2020

An islander who lost his wife to suicide and a mental health nurse have launched an ‘alliance’ to reduce the number of deaths by getting the whole community involved in prevention – “from barbers and taxi drivers through to schools, gyms and health professionals”.

Around 10 to 15 lives are lost to suicide in Jersey each year.

Thrive Jersey founder Andy Le Seelleur and Ronan Mulhern, Consultant Nurse/Suicide Prevention Lead for Adult Mental Health hope their efforts will help reverse that through increasing awareness, reducing stigma and enabling islanders to access the support they need in a timely fashion.

The pair are partnering with a number of UK organisations, including the National Suicide Prevention Alliance, the Zero Suicide Alliance and Suicide Bereavement UK, as well as local organisations such as Mind Jersey, the Recovery College and the Samaritans.

Pictured: A number of local and national organisations are getting involved in the initiative.

However, they are keen to stress that the whole island community has a part to play.

“HCS has focused on suicide through the Suicide Prevention Steering Group Board for a number of years. The five-year prevention strategy developed by HCS in 2015 is currently undergoing a review. The time is right to involve the whole community in finding effective local solutions to this complex public health issue. This is an issue which directly or indirectly impacts upon us all,” Mr Mulhern said.

Mr Le Seelleur added that he hoped the Suicide Alliance would start “opening up the dialogue around suicide”.

“Just one sudden death can have a huge impact on friends, family and colleagues and in a small community like ours, the impact is significantly increased. Thrive has worked hard to develop relationships with local and UK organisations and a local alliance, along the lines of the UK’s National Suicide Prevention Alliance, will glue this all together really well,” he said.

Awareness, prevention and bereavement will be the key areas of focus, and anyone with expertise or interested in supporting the initiative is being invited to email r.mulhern@health.gov.je or andy@thrivejersey.com.