Creating Hope Together: Year 2 Annual Report

Key achievements in year 2

Suicide Prevention Scotland has continued to make good progress on delivering the actions which we know will contribute to achieving the long-term outcomes. We have built on the foundations laid down in year 1 to achieve positive progress across the four long term outcomes and achieved all milestones set out in our annual delivery plan.

All our work is driven by the guiding principles which have been used below to demonstrate some of the key achievements/ actions over the 2024/25 financial year.

Fuller details of progress on delivery are contained in the appendices of this report.

Guiding principle 1

We will consider inequalities and diversity – to ensure we meet the suicide prevention needs of the whole population whilst accounting for key risk factors, such as poverty, and social isolation. We will ensure our work is relevant for urban, rural, remote and island communities

In response to our Annual Report in 2024, the National Suicide Prevention Advisory Group (NSPAG) recommended a shift in focus from engagement with organisations working with people who experience stigma, discrimination, inequalities and the socio-economic determinants of suicide, into action.

We have continued to work alongside organisations who work with people who experience stigma, discrimination, inequalities and the socio-economic determinants of suicide and our Lived and Living Experience Panel and Youth Advisory Group to help shape the language we use, our way of understanding the impact of stigma and systemic discrimination and shape the actions and milestones in the CHT delivery plan for 2024/2026.

This year we have undertaken key areas of work to support a shift to action, these include:

• We commissioned Scottish Community Development Centre to support four community-based organisations to undertake Community Led Action Research (CLAR). The organisations involved support people who experience stigma, discrimination, inequalities and the socio-economic determinants of suicide including refugees and people seeking asylum, young people, people experiencing poor mental health and people experiencing poverty. This work supports the test of change actions across the action plan and will help shape future actions to improve suicide prevention for these communities.
• We spent time engaging with organisations working with a range of communities including young women, women who have experienced domestic abuse, men, LGBTQ+ and racialised communities. We used what they told us to shape the effective risk management and family and carer involvement in mental health care work. Three NHS Boards are progressing implementation of this in line with the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health (NCISH) recommendations for safer mental health services.
• We held a number of learning sessions which included:
• Connecting the delivery at local levels across different but related topic areas. To support this, we held sessions connecting local Suicide Prevention Leads with, the Gypsy Traveller service lead from MECOPP, trauma informed practice leads, and The Promise leads network.
• A workshop to members of the Poverty Alliance, highlighting the connection between their work and suicide prevention. This included introducing resources to support them in addressing suicide.
• A webinar which raised awareness of the suicide prevention needs of neurodiverse people. This was attended by 600 people from a wide range of organisations across sectors.
• We have also worked intensively to improve our understanding as a delivery collective of the impact stigma, discrimination and inequalities have and to be able to demonstrate the contribution our work is making to address these. This has included:
• Working with See Me to deliver a full day workshop for the delivery collective which highlighted the impact of discrimination and inequalities. This session introduced a model which is now used across our work to help highlight where and how stigma and discrimination of suicide (and mental health more widely) in combination with other forms of stigma and discrimination is seen, and how we can address it through our work.
• Developing a resource which supports the work of delivery collective members by pulling together in one place the evidence from published lived experience engagement including reports such as Hard Edges.
• Creating a specific stepping stone within our monitoring and recording system, to ensure that inequalities is addressed through all our work and will enable us to improve reporting.
• Continuing to explore ways to improve our data and intelligence around suicide. This includes:
• development of an ethnicity database which will be linked to Scottish Suicide Information Database (ScotSID) to add an extra layer of analysis in terms of inequalities
• mapping postcode data which will allow identification of potential relationships between deprivation and suicide rates

Implementing suicide reviews which will increase our understanding of the factors which contribute to suicide in Scotland. Five local areas are actively using the system which supports local data capture to enable reviews, with three others in the process of joining them.

Guiding principle 2

We will co-develop our work alongside people with lived and living experience (ensuring that experience reflects the diversity of our communities and suicidal experiences). We will also ensure safeguarding measures are in place across our work.

• Our Lived and Living Experience Panel and Youth Advisory Group meet regularly and have helped to shape work across the delivery plan including work in clinical settings, data and evidence, bereavement support, community led action research, the online portal, the Delphi study and suicide prevention action plans in high-risk settings. They have played a key role in the co-production of the Suicide Prevention Scotland campaign which will launch early in 2025/ 26 financial year.
• The Lived and Living Experience Steering Group which includes people with lived and living experience has helped to shape how we work with our panels and how we ensure safeguarding is in place for them and the members of the delivery collective.
• We have built strong working relationships with organisations who work with people who experience stigma, discrimination, inequalities and the socio-economic determinants of suicide. They are now included in distribution lists to receive invites to events and updates via newsletters etc and actively engage with these opportunities and contribute to the development of work across the action plan.
• We held the first Side by Side After Suicide event which was designed by people with lived experience of bereavement for people bereaved by suicide. Around 80 people attended on the day. The feedback indicated that attendees valued the opportunity to come together with others who had experienced suicide bereavement in a warm, caring and compassionate environment. They valued hearing about and speaking to the range of services who attended who provide support and hearing the messages of hope from the guest speakers. Areas of improvement which were highlighted will be used to help shape further events of this nature.

Guiding principle 3

We will ensure the principles of Time, Space, Compassion are central to our work to support people’s wellbeing and recovery. This includes people at risk of suicide, their families/carers and the wider community, respectful of their human rights.

• Time Space Compassion (TSC) remains central to all our work from how we work together as a collaborative to the individual delivery of actions across the delivery plan. Some key examples of where we have seen this in practice over the last year include
• We have worked with Scottish Government mental health in primary care and the primary care health inequalities policy teams to ensure inclusion in the Mental Health in primary and community care report - December 2024
• We published a second volume of TSC practice stories and a new set of podcasts
• We developed and delivered a TSC workshop with Suicide Prevention Implementation Leads in Public Health Scotland and local Suicide Prevention Leads for delivery at local level

Guiding principle 4

We will ensure the voices of children and young people are central to work to address their needs, and co-develop solutions with them.

• The Youth Advisory Group and Participation Network provide the main opportunities to gather the views of young people and to co-design solutions with them to address their needs. In addition, this year the Academic Advisory Group undertook a systematic review of effective interventions for young people. A scoping exercise was also undertaken and an insight report published which captured the views and recommendations of young people, practitioners and parents/ carers.
• These pieces of work were then used to develop priorities and milestones for work across a number of actions including, advocating for suicide prevention to be included into the whole school approach to mental health, working with youth work sector to develop effective interventions, development of a toolkit to support parents and peers to have conversations with young people about suicide, development of case studies highlighting areas of positive practice across Scotland, establishing a Universities and Colleges Network which enables sharing and peer support across the sector and supporting work to develop suicide prevention action plans in residential care settings.
• Members of Suicide Prevention Scotland are also members of the implementation groups of the Joint Strategic Board for Child and Family Mental Health ensuring suicide prevention is considered within delivery of their work. Suicide Prevention Scotland is working closely with policy colleagues on the work to develop a framework for crisis in children and young people.

Guiding principle 5

We will provide opportunities for people across different sectors at local and national levels to come together, learn and connect – inspiring them to play their part in preventing suicide.

• Local Suicide Prevention Leads play a key role in delivering suicide prevention activity in their local areas. There are three Suicide Prevention Implementation Leads (SPILs) based within PHS who support their work and create opportunities for them to come together to learn and connect with topics of interest and to engage with the national Suicide Prevention Scotland Team. This includes, monthly drop-in sessions attended by the National Delivery Lead and Outcome 4 Lead, bi-monthly newsletter, and Knowledge Hub Page.
• We have delivered webinars on the Delphi Study, online harms and social media after a suicide to the wider suicide prevention network. These sessions allowed participants the opportunity to engage in question and answer sessions and provided information which can be translated into local practice.
• We delivered a second Gathering Hope event bringing together around 70 third sector organisations to support learning around funding, evaluation, learning opportunities and suicide prevention for LGBTQ+ young people and in communities. Conversation Cafe sessions at this event provided the opportunity for the organisations to hear about and help shape work on suicide prevention relating to gender-based violence, neurodiversity, people seeking asylum and refugees, LGBTQ+, learning resources, men, communities, homelessness and bereavement by suicide.
• In addition to hosting these events, the National Delivery Lead and other members of Suicide Prevention Scotland have delivered presentations and hosted workshops at a wide range of session ensuring suicide prevention is included in discussions across sectors and topic areas. The list below sets out some of these sessions:
• Young onset dementia round table
• Chief Officers Public Protection Learning Event
• Bipolar Scotland
• Child Death Review Network
• NHS Wellbeing Champions Network
• Mental Health Employers Network
• Domestic Abuse Homicide and Suicide Reviews
• Canmore Trust Conference focused on suicide across Medical and Veterinary professions
• Police Scotland Mental Health Reference Group
• Mental Health Unscheduled Care Network
• University of Edinburgh Access to Means Guidance Launch
• UK and Republic of Ireland 5 Nations meetings

Guiding principle 6

We will take every opportunity to reduce the stigma of suicide through our work.

• It is likely that by delivering the actions in CHT, we will go a long way to addressing suicide stigma. However, it is not enough to make this assumption. We are therefore working closely with See Me to produce an anti-stigma framework which will have a substantial focus on inequalities in suicide.
• We are also developing an e-learning module with See Me which provides specific learning around intersectionality, stigma and discrimination linked to mental health and inequalities. The LLEP will also help to shape this.
• Our campaigns framework will help to shape our future campaigns. See Me have been a key contributor and have shared their learning on impactful ways to reduce stigma through campaigns. Our campaigns will contribute towards all our outcomes by supporting a whole society approach, which builds an understanding of suicide, its risk factors and its prevention and ensures people understand the importance of help seeking and help giving and where help can be found.

Guiding principle 7

We will ensure our work is evidence informed, and continue to build the evidence base through evaluation, data and research. We will also use quality improvement approaches, creativity and innovation to drive change – this includes using digital solutions.

• In addition to the information about improvements in data collection set out above, the Academic Advisory Group have also continued to support improvement through publication of reviews which focused on:
• Understanding Help Seeking and Help Giving
• Effective interventions for reducing suicide risk in young people
• Policy Interventions to address social determinants of suicide
• Preventing suicide by hanging and self-poisoning in Scotland

The activity which has taken place over year two, not only helps to set the direction for work in year three but has also provided considerable learning and intelligence which will help to shape the work for the next action plan which will be in place from 2026.

The work we have undertaken has built positive relationships across Scotland covering all geographic areas and linking into a wide range of organisations and sectors who have a part to play in supporting suicide prevention efforts.