Suicide Prevention Co-production Project

Helping to prevent deaths by suicide in West Yorkshire, by working with those who have been impacted.

Leeds Mind was commissioned by the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership to deliver a coproduction project focussed on suicide prevention.

This project was funded for two years from March 2022 to March 2024, covering Leeds, Bradford, Kirklees, Wakefield and Calderdale.

We worked with a team of volunteers across West Yorkshire who all have lived experience of being impacted by suicide either being in that position themself, supporting someone else or being bereaved. Drawing on lived experience, volunteers worked on projects and campaigns that aim to;

Reduce stigma around mental health and suicide
Raise awareness
Champion the voices of people with lived experience
Challenge and influence decision makers to improve mental health support for clients and families

Here is a summary of the main project work that was completed:

Lived Experience Films

We have created a film where we respond to speak directly to health and care staff about our experiences of secondary mental health services.

‘Preventing suicide: communication, support and follow-up’ highlights positive practice in suicide prevention and aims to help make the mental health system in West Yorkshire operate in the best way possible for people and families.

This film has also been broken down into shorter, bitesize films (same content as main film, but split up) on each of the three themes:

You can also download a powerpoint presentation as a discussion guide below (includes a link to the nine-minute film) – which you might find helpful as a resource to use when sharing . You can tweak this as you wish.

Communications_support_and_follow_up_slide_deck (1)

Surviving Crisis: Learning From Lived Experience Podcast

Volunteers have used their own experiences to create a podcast series with the aim of supporting staff who work with people in crisis.

The series consists of five episodes, each 20-30 minutes long and covering different themes.

The episodes have been developed using insight from frontline health and care staff, who were asked in advance to share their thoughts and opinions on what they would like to hear discussed through the series.

One of the volunteers, Alyson, said she hopes the podcasts will offer staff “different perspectives”, adding: “There is nothing better than learning from someone with lived experience to help inform practice and the way forward.”

Another volunteer, James, said: “The more we can do to close the gap and make a more positive experience for everyone, the better the mental health of people accessing services will be in the long term.”

You can listen to the series on Spotify or Soundcloud

Read more here: Podcast_Final Report Section

Bereavement Support Leaflet

Created in collaboration with Leeds Mind Suicide Bereavement Service, this leaflet was created to offer simplified and concise support to those bereaved by suicide.

This project utilised lived experience of bereavement by suicide to understand the support and signposting needs when going through a “trauma like no other”

A tri-fold suicide bereavement support leaflet was produced by the volunteers and the Suicide Bereavement Service.

In conjunction with this, volunteers wrote a blog post about how they kept themselves well throughout their bereavement. This is linked to in the leaflet.

Download here: Bereavement Leaflet_Print ready

Lived Experience Involvement Guidelines

Following a difficult external lived-experience event, we created a new resource called ‘Lived Experience Involvement – Guidelines for Best Practice’, which you can read and download on our Website.

This resource is aimed at all staff working within health and care who involve people with lived experience in their work. Involving people with lived experience might take the form of service design, inviting people with lived experience to sit on an interview panel, or on an advisory group. There are many forms it can take!

Our volunteers have drawn upon their own lived experience of involvement, and on the Mind ‘Influence and Participation’ toolkit to create this resource.

We encourage everyone to read it, use and share it. It’s suitable for anyone working in health and care, whether you’re experienced in lived experience involvement, or are just starting out.

You can download the guide here: Lived-Experience-Involvement-Guidelines-for-Best-Practice (1)

Book of Cope

The ‘Book of Cope’ celebrates and shares the different strategies people from West Yorkshire use to boost their mental wellbeing, to help others when facing their own challenges.

We came up with the idea for ‘Book of Cope’ when we were talking about coping strategies and how important peer support can be on your mental health journey.

We went out and about holding drop-in sessions across West Yorkshire, for people to design their own creative pages for the book. We also accepted online submissions.

This culminated in a 44 page book of coping strategies which are categorised by the ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing’.

You can download here: Final Book of Cope_Digital Version

Read more here: Book of Cope_Final Report Section

Community Conversations

The ‘Community Conversations’ project aimed to capture people’s views on what has worked well, what didn’t work and if anything was missing from mental health services and support.

We went out and spoke to local people across West Yorkshire about their experiences of accessing mental health support in terms of:

What worked well
What didn’t work
What was missing

This was later supplemented by an online survey with the questions we formulated.

This has culminated in a written report which maps out the findings and makes recommendations for future care.

You can read the report here: Community Conversations Final Report

Other Involvements and Consultations

Throughout the course of the project, we have been involved in several events, involvements and consultations.

While these have not been fully co-produced as the group did not initiate and design these involvements, we have been able to share our lived experience to inform various practice, strategy and research.

Involvements have included:

Research Project on the role of pharmacies in suicide prevention: Research Project_Final Report Section
Consultation on the use of memorials: Memorials_Final Report Section
Chamber Meeting: Chamber Meeting_Final Report Section

This project has now ended due to discontinued funding. If you want to find out more information, you can contact info@leedsmind.org.uk