Here at Harmless, we are passionate that the voices of those with lived experience are at the heart of shaping regional and national suicide prevention programmes. Your views should inform and influence the policy, processes and structure of the services designed to support you.
In collaboration with Nottinghamshire County Council and other local partners, we are dedicated to ensuring that the new Wave 4 Suicide prevention programme will be underpinned by engagement and participation of service users, multi-agency collaboration with partner organisations and community groups. This is an incredible opportunity for collaboration and influence.
Would you like to get involved?
We are looking for individuals with lived experience of having been affected by suicide, such as personal experience of suicidality or bereavement by suicide, to join an engagement group, in the development of a newly funded Wave 4 Suicide Prevention Programme.
You will need a knowledge of local (Nottingham and Nottinghamshire) services and the support available for people with these experiences, we want to know what really works. Individuals should have a knowledge of the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Suicide Prevention Strategy (2019-23) and an understanding of privacy and confidentiality.
Can you speak in group/meeting settings? Great! This is your opportunity to constructively put forward your views and ideas to a range of people and help to challenge and question. As a group member you should be able to demonstrate integrity, good judgement and objectivity and represent the views of others in feeding back to the group.
You will also need basic IT skills (to do emails and access online meetings) and the ability to understand a range of information and data, such as plans, reports, specifications, graphs and charts, with support.
With membership from pre-existing local mental health and suicide prevention engagement groups, you will provide expertise by experience on key areas of the Wave 4 programme work, such as communication and public awareness, focusing on how best to effectively raise awareness and reduce stigma surrounding suicide. Group member responsibilities will be to inform and influence developments including, but not limited to:
- Developing the Wave 4 Suicide Prevention Programme Guiding Principles or Suicide Prevention Charter.
- Development of specifications for targeted support for specific groups known to be at high risk of suicide.
- Participation in review and decision panels for small grants for community suicide prevention projects.
- Development of surveys to seek the views of the wider public on near-final developments.
- Feedback to the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Suicide Prevention Strategic Steering Group
Please know that this will be a safe space to help grow and develop much needed lifesaving services.
If you are interested in joining the Wave 4 Suicide Prevention Engagement Group, please contact info@harmless.org.uk for more full details and the necessary forms for you to complete.
***Please note in order to take part you must have an existing relationship to Harmless or The Tomorrow Project.