Invictus Wellbeing Services

Our organisation offers mental health and emotional wellbeing support to children and young people.

We offer free at the point of access services in conjunction with schools, colleges, educational settings, CCGs, Local Authorities and other third sector organisations.

We currently offer one to one support to children and young people struggling with their mental health and wellbeing whilst also promoting positive mental health in schools through peer mentoring, workshops, training and more.

How does your organisation contribute to preventing suicide and supporting those affected by it?

Our organisation supports many young people who are or have experienced self harm and suicidal ideation.

We strive to ensure that all of our sessions and programmes are safe and non-judgmental spaces in which children and young people are able to discuss any and all issues, big and small.

Suicidal ideation is stressful, difficult to manage and hard to talk about. That’s why our staff are trained to manage conversations around suicidal ideation.

We focus on alternative thinking, understanding suicidal thoughts and feelings, understanding that they are just that: thoughts and feelings and that they are temporary and do not define you as a person.

We work with children and young people with numerous coping strategies, distraction strategies, keeping safe strategies and crisis management.

What are your current priorities?

To ensure that any child/young person has the support available to them immediately should they need it. That they are shown empathy, understanding and respect in a non-judgmental session where they can explain and explore their thoughts, feelings and emotions.

By doing this, we can try to reduce the amount of suicides by children and young people and ensuring they know they have someone to talk to if they are ever in crisis.

What challenges are you currently facing?

We are currently facing difficulties with:

– CAMHS waiting times/referral pathways for complex cases.

– Funding & ability to offer services we would like to.