The Suicide Prevention Network was launched in June 2024 as a space for people to come together to have a role in suicide prevention locally in Calderdale.
The network is commissioned by Calderdale Cares Partnership to meet at least four times a year. The network aims to be a space for people to have a voice on what is important in reducing suicide (and the wider impacts of suicide). The learnings gathered from the network will be shared with the Calderdale Suicide Prevention Strategic Group, with a representative of the network sitting on this strategic group, to ensure the voice of the people is being heard at this level of decision making.
The network is for anyone who cares about suicide prevention, including those who may be personally affected by suicide.
Prevention: our mission is to prevent lives from being lost by way of suicide, as well as reduce the wider impacts of suicide in Calderdale. Understanding: we can’t prevent something until we understand it. Need: we are in need of a space for understanding suicide on a human level.
Who we invite to be involved…
This network will be a ‘people’s voice’ for the prevention of suicide. It is for:
Anyone who cares about preventing suicide,
who may have been personally affected by suicide,
including those on the frontline of crisis response or those who support people affected by suicide.
What we will do…
We will create a learning space in which we listen to one another’s perspectives on the issues of suicide and suicide prevention.
We will explore the issue of suicide beyond a point of crisis, searching for understanding of what may lie beneath, or lead up to, the outcome of suicide.
We will search for the missed opportunities in how we care for communities and individuals to identify actions that could help prevent suicide in future.
We will share our learnings with Calderdale’s strategic groups to influence the way that suicide prevention is actioned by our health teams and crisis response services.
How we will go about it together…
We will honour difference, recognising that by bringing different perspectives together can create a common understanding of the issue.
We will share an ethos of collective care for our network group, ensuring we give space for moments of pause, reflection and recognition of our felt human responses.
We will recognise that ‘transformation and comfort do not live in the same house’ and that we may all need to sit with, and seek to understand, our discomfort at times.
We will establish a group consensus for the expectations of our network, checking in with these throughout the process to ensure they are still working for us.
The impact it will have…
We aim for this network to have a positive impact on suicide prevention by:
Creating advocates: people who attend the network will reflect on their role in suicide prevention in society – professional or personal.
Influencing strategy: by sharing the knowledge we generate with Calderdale’s strategic groups.
Connect people: to form a contact point for people and organisations who care about suicide prevention, creating new possibilities for collaboration beyond this network.
The format of the network…
We will meet at least four times a year. We will make the network meetings accessible via in-person, online and hybrid means. Healthy Minds will facilitate the network and be the point of contact for network members.
