Programs & Services

4 Steps To Change Lives - Samaritans

4 steps to change lives is Samaritans manifesto in which they call on the UK Government to help them support those who need our help.

After a Campus Suicide - Active Minds

After a Campus Suicide: A Postvention Guide for Student-Led Responses was created to help guide students through the difficult task of responding to a fellow student’s suicide.

Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) - American Mental Wellness Association (AMWA)

Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) comprises five progressive components in which trainees gradually build comfort and understanding around suicide and suicide intervention. ASIST participants learn to:

• Understand attitudes about suicide
• Provide guidance and suicide first aid to a person at risk
• Identify the key elements of an effective suicide safety plan and the actions required to implement it
• Appreciate the value of improving community suicide prevention resources and
• Recognize important aspects of suicide prevention, including life-promotion and self-care.

Brew Monday - Samaritans

‘Brew Monday’ is a celebration held on the third Monday in January celebrating a great tradition of simply getting together to talk over a cuppa.

Connect - American Mental Wellness Association (AMWA)

Connect trains professionals and community members to prevent and respond effectively to suicide across the lifespan. The public health, socio-ecological model emphasizes collaboration between service providers. Best practice protocols are provided for each service provider discipline. The training can be customized to meet the needs of a community or organization.

Counseling on Access to Lethal Means (CALM) - American Mental Wellness Association (AMWA)

Counseling on Access to Lethal Means (CALM) is a course that explains why means restriction is an important part of a comprehensive approach to suicide prevention. It will teach you how to ask suicidal patients/clients about their access to lethal means, and work with them and their families to reduce their access.

David's Way Round - Samaritans

David Exley, a Samaritans volunteer, tragically lost both his brother and his son to suicide. Over the summer 2012, David rode a motorbike over 6,000 miles across the UK and Republic of Ireland to help promote our Annual Awareness Day, 24:7. He visited all 201 branches of Samaritans during his 7-week whistle-stop tour.

Family Respite Program - British Columbia Schizophrenia Society

B.C. Schizophrenia Society’s Family Respite Program provides essential reprieve to people caring for a loved one with a mental illness. Mental health professionals perform short-term care, so unpaid primary caregivers can go on holiday or simply take a few hours for themselves. The Family Respite Program may also be able to provide assistance when a caregiver is ill, or otherwise unable to function in a caregiving capacity. Home visits are an option for caregivers who require extra assistance or professional expertise during a rough patch. By making it possible for them to take much-needed breaks, the program helps caregivers gain the strength and energy they require to care for their loved ones.

Getting Help for Paranoia - Paranoid Thoughts

Paranoid Thoughts recommend reading Overcoming Paranoid and Suspicious Thoughts. This provides extensive information to help people understand exaggerated or unrealistic suspiciousness. Further, six practical steps are provided to help people cope with such fears. However, people sometimes want to consider other sources of help - perhaps seeing a therapist or trying medication. Or sometimes people simply want to find out a bit more about the issues.

So how do we know when it's right to ask for professional help?

There's no cut and dried answer to this one, but basically it boils down to:

• How much distress the thoughts are causing
• How much disruption the thoughts are causing on work, relationships, activities, or quality of life

If you do decide to seek professional help, it's crucial that you find the right person. If you think your GP doesn't understand paranoid thoughts and their treatment, ask to be referred to a specialist. It's relatively easy to get knowledgeable advice on medication, but harder to find someone with specialist psychological knowledge. In this section there is information on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) & Medication.

Good Space - Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health

Good SPACE (GS) (formerly known as Farm-Link) is a Suicide Prevention Project that aims to prevent suicide through community and clinical education. The project, supported by Hunter New England Central Coast Primary Health Network (PHN) also helps link people to services appropriate to their needs. Good SPACE aims to increase AWARENESS about why people die by suicide, what leads a person into that space, and what we can all do to be in a good space. They provide practical suggestions to help individuals personally so they can have the COURAGE to make choices to keep themselves in a good space and the COURAGE to have a conversation about suicide with a person they are concerned about. They encourage EMPATHY to reduce the stigma surrounding suicide, acknowledging suicide as a real human condition that can be dramatically reduced by care, concern and listening to the pain of another. Through AWARENESS, COURAGE and EMPATHY a person can be helped to choose life, to make better choices and to re-discover hope. We believe this (along with encouraging help-seeking) will contribute to the prevention of suicide.

Know the signs: Information on suicide and self-harm for parents - Samaritans

Know the signs: Information on suicide and self-harm for parents is a leaflet that helps parents identify children at crisis point, and helps guide them in what to do next.

Late Life Suicide Prevention Toolkit - American Mental Wellness Association (AMWA)

Late Life Suicide Prevention Toolkit is an educational program developed for use by front-line providers, medical and mental health care clinicians, and health care trainees. It focuses on how to identify suicide warning signs, establish rapport and assess suicide risk and resiliency factors, and manage immediate and ongoing risk for suicide among older adults.

Men on the Ropes - Samaritans

Men on the Ropes is part of a 5-year partnership with Network Rail to reduce suicides on the railway, this campaign is aimed at getting men talking about their feelings. This campaign was relaunched in 2016 as We Listen.

NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION ALLIANCE (NSPA) - Samaritans

 The National Suicide Prevention Alliance (NSPA) is a cross-sector, Englandwide coalition committed to reducing the number of suicides in England and improving support for those bereaved or affected by suicide. The NSPA want to get all parts of society working together to take action to reduce suicide and improve the support for those affected by suicide.

• Reducing stigma: We want all parts of society talking about suicide and taking action to maintain good mental health, so that it is as normal as talking about and maintaining physical health.
• Encouraging help-seeking: We want more people who are experiencing emotional distress to seek help before they become suicidal.
• Providing the appropriate support: We want to ensure that when people in emotional distress seek help, they receive appropriate support from the people or organisations they approach and that they are offered appropriate options.
• Reducing access to means: We want it to be harder for people experiencing severe emotional distress to have access to the means to take their own life.
• Reducing the impact of suicide: We want to ensure that people affected by suicide get the support they need to cope with the impact on their life.
• Improving data & evidence: We want there to be better official data about suicide in England and more evidence about effective suicide prevention. Those working in suicide prevention should find it easier to obtain this data and evidence.
• Working together: We want organisations with an interest in suicide prevention collaborating with each other to make a bigger difference.

Our Work In Prisons - Samaritans

Samaritans works in partnership with prison services to reduce the number of self-inflicted deaths and self-harm amongst prisoners. Working together to reduce suicide in prisons, Samaritans work with Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), Scottish Prison Service (SPS), Irish Prison Service (IPS) and Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS) in suicide prevention. Prisoners can access Samaritans’ services in a number of ways:

• Listener schemes: Samaritans volunteers select and train prisoners to offer confidential peer support to anyone who might be struggling to cope or who is feeling worried or frightened.
• Telephone support: All prisons are required to offer prisoners access to Samaritans’ helpline free of charge.  
• Correspondence Branch: if prisoners prefer,  they can write to us instead.  We offer a freepost service, so there is no need to buy a stamp and freepost envelopes are usually available in communal areas of the prison.
• Face to face support: if there is not a prison listener scheme available, volunteers from the local Samaritans branch may visit the prison to offer face to face support. Offenders may also have access to Samaritans branches whilst on temporary licence.
• Support for prison staf: prison staff are also welcome to  contact Samaritans. Our services are particularly important following a suicide in custody.  At these sad times, we play a key role in supporting both staff and prisoners.

Rail Suicide Prevention Program - Samaritans

Rail Suicide Prevention Program is a program working with Network Rail with the aim of preventing rail suicides and supporting those affected by them. 

Safely Talking - Mental Health Council of Tasmania (MHCT)

Safely Talking has been developed to guide safe discussions on suicide and suicide prevention. The toolkit has been co-developed by MHCT and Everymind with extensive consultation from the mental health and suicide prevention sector.

Samaritans in Education - Samaritans

Samaritans supports schools, college communities and other youth settings across the UK and Republic of Ireland in a variety of ways:

• Free online teaching resources (DEAL)
• Talks given by our volunteers
• Support for schools and colleges in the planning and implementation of a postvention response (Step by Step)

Shine On – Suicide Prevention Campaign - Bristol Independent Mental Health Network (BIMHN)

Shine On is a campaign bringing together people and organisations across South Gloucestershire, Bristol and North Somerset to tackle the issue of suicide and raise awareness of the support available. BIMHN has an active part in this campaign, supporting events and promoting the activities taking place across the local area.

Skills for Safer Living - Self Help and Peer Support Services

A Suicide-Intervention Support Group The Skills for Safer Living program is a combination of a twenty-week skills-based group and a peer support group for individuals with recurring thoughts and behaviours…

Sources of Strength - American Mental Wellness Association (AMWA)

Sources of Strength is a comprehensive wellness program that uses the combined power of peer and caring adult relationships to improve social norms, enhance coping and social support, and increase help-seeking behaviors in order to reduce conditions that give rise to suicide and other risk-taking behaviors. Trained teams of adult advisors and a diverse group of peer leaders attempt to impact their local teen and young adult cultures through conversations within their friendship groups and by delivering a series of “Hope, Help, and Strength” messages via:

• Classroom presentations
• Public service announcements
• Posters
• Videos
• The internet and
• Text messaging.

The program is strength-based and promotes eight critical protective factors that are linked to overall psychological wellness and reduced suicide risk. The program can be implemented in schools or colleges, as well as in faith, cultural, and community-based settings.

Suicide Prevention Month - Active Minds

Suicide Prevention Month provides students an option to plan activities to raise awareness and action for mental health awareness during Suicide Prevention Month in September. This includes:

• Activity suggestions
• Educational resources and
• Social media images

Suicide Prevention Peer Workforce - Roses in the Ocean

Suicide Prevention Program - The Royal Mental Health Care

Supporting Local Rail Stations - Samaritans

Samaritans branches support their local railway stations to help those affected by potentially traumatic incidents. In the hours, days or weeks after an incident Samaritans volunteers can be called upon to attend a station to be there for any staff or passengers affected. This post-incident support service to railway stations has become more widely available through the development of close relationships with train operating companies as a result of the Network Rail partnership, signed in 2010. 

Survivor Voices: Sharing the Story of Suicide Loss - American Mental Wellness Association (AMWA)

Survivor Voices: Sharing the Story of Suicide Loss is a two-day training designed to teach those bereaved by suicide how to speak safely and effectively about their experience and loss. Through the sharing of personal stories, survivors of suicide loss provide insight that goes beyond traditional suicide prevention training. These insights can promote healing for those who are newly bereaved, educate the public about how to support survivors of suicide loss, and increase awareness and understanding of risk factors and warning signs for suicide.

Talk to Us - Samaritans

Talk To Us is a national awareness and fundraising campaign which takes place in July. As their annual awareness-raising campaign, Samaritans is challenging the UK to become better listeners by sharing expert tips on how to be a better listener. Throughout July, Samaritans branches are also holding events throughout the UK and Ireland to raise awareness of the services they offer in their local communities. Visit your local branch website to see what they're doing during Talk To Us.

The Call to Action for Suicide Prevention - Samaritans

Samaritans facilitated a Call to Action for Suicide Prevention in England with over 50 national organisations, which culminated with the launch of the National Suicide Prevention Alliance. The Call to Action emphasised a co-ordinated approach from Government, public services, voluntary groups, the private sector and communities, in order to better support people at risk of suicide. It mobilised organisations from across sectors, identifying shared priorities and highlighting key areas for action. Following successful collaboration between partners in the development and launch of the Call to Action Declaration, members confirmed they wanted to continue as a standing alliance of organisations, committed to reducing suicide and progressing the shared aims identified via the Call to Action.

The We're in your Corner Campaign - Samaritans

The We're in your Corner campaign is aimed at middle-aged men most at risk of suicide. The 'We’re in your Corner' campaign is designed to raise awareness of the issue of men and suicide, encourage these men to seek help, understand why this group of men are most at risk and influence policy makers and service providers

The Youth Suicide Prevention, Intervention and Research Center (Y-SPIRC) - Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

The Youth Suicide Prevention, Intervention and Research Center (Y-SPIRC) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia was created to turn around these grim statistics by taking a holistic approach. The Center, part of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, incorporates clinical care, research, education and community engagement as ways to improve the identification and treatment of depression and other mental illnesses that can lead to suicide in children and youth.

The Puppet Education Program - British Columbia Schizophrenia Society

The Puppet Education Program consists of a puppet show, followed by a short discussion about mental illness, designed to help younger children understand mental illness. Ideal for children in grades 3-5, this program challenges stigma around mental illness in children by teaching them  factual information about mental illness, helping reduce fear and stigma surrounding mental illness. They also learn how they can support a friend or family member with mental illness and how to seek help.

U Can Cope - Samaritans

Open Minds Alliance CIC, Samaritans, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Southwick Media Consultancy led the U Can Cope multimedia multiagency media campaign to support and promote the 2012 World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD) on 10th September.  To this end, Samaritans commissioned a film entitled U Can Cope which was released on 10th September, WSPD. The film featured compelling stories of surviving suicidal thoughts, with commentaries from Dr Alys Cole- King, a leading clinician in the field, and Professor Stephen Platt, an eminent academic in this area who have both worked closely in the production of this powerful and thought-provoking film. The film promotes 3 main messages:

• Anyone can experience suicidal thoughts.
• There is always hope.
• There is always help.

This resource had the added benefit of being developed by partner agencies engaged with the Call to Action for Suicide Prevention in England and began to action the identified consensus priority of developing a shared suicide prevention campaign to improve help-seeking behaviours amongst ‘high risk’ groups and the whole population.

We Talk - Samaritans

We Talk is a campaign supported by Network Rail on behalf of the wider rail industry that focuses on the expert listening service provided by Samaritans volunteers.

WHO’s Preventing Suicide: A Community Engagement Toolkit - The World Health Organisation (WHO) - Mental Health

WHO’s Preventing suicide: a community engagement toolkit is a step-by-step guide for people who would like to initiate suicide prevention activities in their community. It includes advice and practical tools to help with goal setting, stakeholder mapping and development of an action plan as well as details of successful initiatives in Canada, India, Kenya, Nepal, Trinidad and Tobago and the USA.

World Suicide Prevention Day - Samaritans

World Suicide Prevention Day is an annual awareness raising event aimed to reach out to people who may be stuggling to cope. World Suicide Prevention Day is held each year on 10 September. It's an annual awareness raising event organised by International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Reaching out to people who are going through a difficult time can be a game changer.