Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership Staff in conjunction with Glasgow University, joined Councillor Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council on World Suicide Prevention Day, Tuesday 10 September 2019, to highlight Suicide Prevention work in Glasgow.

Speaking to over 80 people at the City Chambers Dr Trevor Lakey, Health Improvement and Inequalities Manager, spoke about the National Suicide Prevention Action Plan and.Glasgow City multi agency suicide prevention work.

He said: “For more than 15 years, when the national Choose Life programme for suicide prevention started, there has been effort in Glasgow to bring partners together to seek to prevent suicides in the City. While there is much more to do, the programme of work now includes a large scale training effort, policy and service change, working with voluntary sector and community partners, emergency services, schools and many more.”

Christine Tait, Health Improvement Practitioner then spoke about the work with local Drumchapel Neighbourhood Suicide Safer Community Action Group.

She said: “Local people and partners want to come together to work towards building a Suicide Safer Neighbourhood in Drumchapel.  Thirty–one local people attended a community engagement event and put forward their ideas and actions on what they feel needs to change. The theme of the event was and still remains that Together, Suicide is Preventable.  Together, we will work on these actions and the community is key to making change happen.”

The key note speaker, Professor Rory O’Connor from the Suicidal Behaviour Research Laboratory at Glasgow, talked about suicide being the leading cause of death for men under 50 in the UK and the factors that can lead to someone feeling suicidal, including disadvantage and social circumstances.

Derek Chalmers talked about his experiences as a survivor and how this led him to become involved as a peer support worker for MindtheMen peer support group which has two groups meeting weekly in Glasgow providing support to men at risk of suicide.

Pauline Toner, Principal Officer, Glasgow City HSCP and Glasgow City Choose Life Coordinator closed the event.

Pauline advised: “Suicide prevention is every one’s business and any person, any individual can try and prevent suicide. So if you are worried about someone, or see someone in serious distress, please strike up a conversation with them, ask them how they are feeling, including asking them if they are feeling suicidal and help them to stay safe and connect them to support.”

You can watch an animation to raise awareness at www.bit.ly/AskTellSaveALife

If you have been affected by this article you can contact Samaritans for free, anonymous and confidential support day or night on 116 123.