Sunflowers Suicide Support
Sunflowers is a charity founded in memory of Pete Morris, who died by suicide in 2016. We aim to raise suicide prevention awareness through campaigns like ‘I Am Listening’ and ASIST training, and to support bereaved families in Gloucestershire. As part of the Gloucestershire Suicide Prevention Partnership Forum, we strive to make the county a suicide-safer community.

Our work in suicide prevention
At Sunflowers Suicide Support, we provide accredited training in suicide intervention to the wider community to help increase the knowledge and skills in working alongside someone who may be having thoughts of suicide. Where we can, we offer this free of charge to the participants attending.
We regularly run campaigns online through our social media accounts and have stands at local community events to raise awareness and get people talking about suicide. Our most recent was Chase the Sun where 145 people ran 10k to raise awareness.
We deliver talks about the charity and our story to raise awareness. We are part of the Gloucestershire Suicide Prevention Partnership Forum where we work with other organisations to raise awareness in conjunction with the Government Suicide Prevention Strategy and local needs. We also have a good relationship with our local mental health trust and our Founder has been appointed an Expert by Experience on their panel to encourage good practice.
We have worked with Public Health to put together support packs which we now offer families bereaved by suicide. We also deliver Grief Recovery courses to those bereaved as well as running events to bring families together in a relaxed and supportive environment, so they know they are not alone. We are currently working with a Counselling Psychologist to set up a local support group for families bereaved by suicide.

Our current priorities
We have secured funding to deliver at least three ASIST workshops over the next year, equipping 42 community members with suicide intervention skills. We aim to raise awareness of our training through presentations and explore offering SafeTalk and resources for schools to enhance suicide prevention education.
We are funding three Grief Recovery Courses for families bereaved by suicide and working towards securing long-term funding. Additionally, we plan to launch a support group led by a Counselling Psychologist, incorporating feedback from participants to address issues like anxiety, trauma, and mindfulness.
To support those recently bereaved and navigating inquests, we’ve introduced SOS Packs and are collaborating with Public Health and the Coroner to ensure distribution. We are exploring funding for a ‘Suicide Liaison’ or ‘befriender’ role and developing inquest resources, including legal support information.

Our current challenges
Currently everything we offer is self-funded, so we must run lots of fundraising events to ensure we can continue to pay to deliver our services.
As we do not have our own premises, we have to ensure that we can find suitable venues to hold our training and deliver our support groups which is quite time consuming and costly.
