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Rethink Mental Illness
Rethink Mental Illness is a charity that believes a better life is possible for millions of people affected by mental illness. In 1972 one man bravely spoke about his family’s experiences of mental illness in a letter to the Times and in the process brought together hundreds to talk about their experiences of mental illness and support each other. Today we directly support almost 60,000 people every year across England to get through crises, live independently and to realise they are not alone. Our website and helplines give information and advice to 500,000 more and we change policy for millions. We carry out research to make sure we deliver real results for people, young or old. Our services, support groups, and members cover every county in England, giving us local insight and helping us spread innovations nationally. All our work is governed by people who have lived through mental illness.
Our work in suicide prevention
We are lead partners with Mind, on Time to Change, the national campaign to challenge and reverse the stigma and discrimination about mental illness which often prevents people from seeking help. We run 230 services, and work with thousands of people who experience emotional distress and support them through our community, advocacy, housing and more specialist services such as help-lines and crisis houses. We signpost people to our own and other services and provide direct, recovery-based support to people in distress, encouraging them to discuss any suicidal thoughts before they reach crisis point.
We facilitate over 100 peer support groups. We seek to make it more difficult to access the means of suicide by conducting wide-scale audits of all our properties and work-bases, reviewing things like window restrictors and ligature points. We provide training for our staff on suicide awareness and prevention, but want to develop this further. We collaborate with Samaritans and other mental health provides, but again would wish to develop this further. We collect information on serious incidents such as suicide attempts nationally, and monitor these monthly at our Integrated Governance Review Group.
Our current priorities
Our current priorities include establishing a representative and cross-organisational work group and defining its terms of reference. We aim to develop a draft strategy for suicide prevention and self-harm reduction across the charity’s activities, accompanied by a comprehensive work plan to address key development areas. This includes identifying specific training tools and fostering relationships with specialist charities and agencies to share expertise and learning.
Our current challenges
We have noticed an increase in the numbers of people expressing or attempting suicide. There has been a reduction in the statutory services available, such as crisis teams or out of hours support, for people who may be experiencing distress. We are faced with a dilemma when people express suicidal intentions to us, by phone for example. We sometimes have to contact the police to ensure the safety of such people, but those individuals can regard this as a betrayal of trust and breach of confidentiality.