New campaign underway in Darlington to prevent suicides
Earlier this month we told you Darlington has the sixth highest rate in England
A new campaign's underway to address and prevent further suicides in Darlington.
We told you earlier this month that the town has the sixth highest rate in England - particularly in men aged 45 to 64.
The Council's vowed to highlight the specific support that's available.
Lorraine Hughes, director of public health at Darlington Borough Council, said: "Every life lost to suicide is an absolute tragedy for that individual but also for family and friends affected. It's estimated that actually for each life lost to suicide there's an impact on up to 135 people, like friends, family, work colleagues, and wider communities.
"It's an issue that we really do want to address because even if the work we do we can prevent two or three suicides for example, that's those lives saved isn't it? And for that reason, if we can do some work or help even just a small number of people, it's worthwhile doing.
"Sometimes there can still be quite a lot of stigma about discussing your mental health so it's how do we reach men? But also for other people and our communities for them to also have the confidence to start a conversation.
"We're really, really grateful to these men for working with us because it's their words. It's their ideas about the campaign that we've been able to develop. We really hope that that'll reach people, it'll resonate with them and it'll make them feel more able to come forward for help and support when they need to.
"We all have mental health. It's just sometimes it might be a good state of mental health and other times a poorer state of mental health. We're very comfortable talking about physical or at least more comfortable talking about physical health, but we want people to feel comfortable talking about their mental health as well. It's something that affects everybody.
"I'm not sitting here and expecting an immediate impact and response. I think all of this work around suicide prevention, there isn't a quick fix to it. We need to be thinking about what we're doing over the next few years for this and how are we working because one of the complexities of suicide prevention is every suicide is very unique.
"There's no one solution and it's about how we do lots of different things that might help so that at that moment in time, there's something there for that person or how can we support people before they even get to that crisis point, so lots of things feed into it."
Rebecca Morgan, public health officer at Darlington Borough Council, said: “There’s still work to do, and it’s still a priority for us and all our partners across the borough we’re working with.”
A report added: “While the rates in Darlington are high, the number of lives lost to suicide remains relatively small. This does not lessen the impact of these tragic losses, but it means that caution is exercised when sharing local data to ensure that anonymity is protected.”
A group from the Suicide Prevention Partnership has been established to develop a marketing campaign to highlight the specific support that is available in Darlington for men experiencing suicidal crisis.
The council added: “Suicide prevention and risk reduction continue to be a focus for system-wide activity in Darlington and in the wider regional structures. Initial work to explore and further develop local action will continue, co-ordinated by the Suicide Prevention Partnership. Local data and intelligence, alongside the evidence base for suicide prevention, will be utilised to inform further local actions.”