Government New Suicide Prevention Strategy - Help Needed
On Friday 24th June, the 3 Dads were part of a select few invited by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Rt. Hon, Sajid Javid MP, to hear him launch the Government’s new Suicide Prevention Strategy for England.
In addition to launching the Strategy, the minister also spoke about his brother, Tariq, who tragically took his own life 4 years ago. In the Secretary of State’s words, this has made his drive to improve suicide prevention a personal one.
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Rt. Hon Sajid Javid MP, at PAPYRUS in London launching the Government’s Suicide Prevention Strategy
PAPYRUS’s CEO, Ged Flynn, who hosted the event stated:
‘However, THE most important thing that happened was this: a senior, serving minister in HM Government shared his experience of losing his own brother to suicide four years previously. That public exposure of personal, private pain was a seismic shift in the societal conversation’.
The launch is just the start of the journey but action was promised in the 2023/24 timescale and would focus on 4 areas:
Encouraging people to come forward and talk.
Looking at risk factors.
Improving services both within and outside the NHS.
Using new technologies to support the strategy.
The 3 Dads will continue to engage with the Government to help shape this live-saving strategy. As we have been saying since we walked in 2021, if we provide age-appropriate suicide prevention training to our young people through the PSHE curriculum in schools, then the skills learnt in early life will prevent suicides. Those skills will stay with individuals for the rest of their lives therefore reducing suicide risk across society. We must stop suicide being the biggest killer of our young people.
At the event, we also had the privilege to meet 2 other suicide bereaved dads, Mike McCarthy and Steve Phillip, who after loosing their son’s, Ross and Jordon, have started a campaign called Baton of Hope which will involve a big event in 2023. The 3 Dads will be supporting.
Call for evidence to help inform the strategy - HELP NEEDED. The Department are also urging people from all walks of life, especially men, to respond to the Mental Health call for evidence. This consultation is an online public survey, which is due to close on the 7th July 2022.