Suicide prevention: Learning from the lived experience of suicidality
Date: 08 September 2023 to 06 April 2030

To mark World Suicide Prevention Day, which takes place on 10 September each year, we ran an all-staff webinar on 6 September. The topic of the session was learning from the lived experience of suicidality.
At the webinar, we heard from two experienced speakers from the National Suicide Prevention Alliance Lived Experience Network, who shared their own experiences, learnings and advice.
Our speakers talked about understanding lived experience of suicidality and preventing suicidality.
They highlighted some of the things they’ve found helpful in the past including regular connection and reconnection with staff members, being shown care and compassion even when they tried to push people away and not trying to fix their pain, but to witness and acknowledge it with empathy and kindness.
They also emphasised how, in their own experience in the past, it was very valuable that staff members who supported them always listened to them and most importantly, that they never gave up on them while dealing with suicide.
World Suicide Prevention Day
The day provides the opportunity for people, across the globe, to raise awareness of suicide and suicide prevention. Read more about the day here.
Here’s a list of some coming events to learn more about the day. Hope you find this useful:
- 9 September – Time Together, a service of reflection for people affected by suicide. Face to face, St-Martins-in-the-Fields, 14:00-15:30. A non-religious service of music and words, a space for reflection for those affected by suicide.
- 10 September – this is World Suicide Prevention Day. Samaritans have some practical resources.
- 11 September - Conference and Service of Remembrance. Online, 10:00-11:30. This event is hosted by SLaM and speakers include the Clinical Director of SLaM and President of the Royal College of Psychiatry, Dr Lade Smith.
- 12 September - Thinking differently about autistic suicide prevention. Online, 12:30-14:00. An event organised by Autistica.