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The ExtraCare Charitable Trust
The ExtraCare Charitable Trust is a registered charity established in 1988. Our vision is better lives for older people and our mission is creating sustainable communities that provide: homes older people want, lifestyles they can enjoy, and care if it’s needed. To deliver our vision and mission we essentially do three things: we develop new villages, we operate villages and schemes, and we support our villages, schemes and our ‘extra-care’ model through fundraising, advocacy and research.
How does your organisation contribute to preventing suicide and supporting those affected by it?
We support around 4,500 older people across our locations, many of whom live with challenges such as dementia and common mental health conditions
We want to prevent suicide in our communities by ensuring that residents and staff have somewhere to turn for help. We are developing a Suicide Prevention, response and support strategy which will:
Reduce barriers to discussing suicide and raise confidence in supporting people thinking of suicide.
Provide practical training and methods of intervention which enable people to keep themselves safe.
Support residents and staff who have been bereaved by suicide.
What are your current priorities?
Our current priorities are to continue to train staff to identify residents who are at risk of suicide, and to be able to connect that person to a suicide intervention care giver.
To develop new safety plan and risk assessment formats which can be used specifically around the topic of suicide, with an aim to increase a person’s safety.
What challenges are you currently facing?
As a housing with care setting, where many residents live independently, we face limitations in the level of support that we can provide to someone who is at risk.
We rely on external practitioners, particularly those in community mental health teams to support us in keeping our residents safe.