Towards Zero Suicide CIC

Towards Zero Suicide CIC was set up to be 100% dedicated to rolling out the Zero Suicide Society Transformation Programme which emerged from action research carried out in 2023. This is documented in the report ‘Moving Towards a Zero Suicide Society’, co-authored by Towards Zero Suicide CIC Founder Paul Vittles and The Jordan Legacy’s Steve Phillip. 

The Zero Suicide Society Transformation Programme is focused on practical actions that will get the UK suicide numbers on a downward trend, towards zero.  

Paul Vittles and Towards Zero Suicide CIC designed, organised and delivered the #ZeroSuicideSociety Humber-to-Mersey #JoinTheDotsTour which took place from 11th to 23rd June 2024. They are now rolling out the Transformation Programme to fulfil the vision of a Zero Suicide Society – one that is “willing and able to do all it can to prevent all preventable suicides”. 

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

The #ZeroSuicideSociety Humber-to-Mersey #JoinTheDotsTour was a demonstration of the Transformation Programme in action. It pulled together the different ‘pieces in the puzzle’; worked in collaborative partnership with many people and organisations across the M62 Corridor; had direct impact such as educational talks, advocacy and campaigning; and supported others to take appropriate and effective action. 

Collaborative partnership working continues across the M62 Corridor, and the Transformation Programme is also being rolled out nationally, including facilitating collaborative partnership groups, projects and initiatives for each ‘piece of the puzzle’. 

What are your current priorities?

There is much follow-up and follow-through work to do with all the collaborative partners who helped deliver the #ZeroSuicideSociety Humber-to-Mersey #JoinTheDotsTour, and ongoing development of collaborative partnership working with the 3,000 people in 550 organisations which the Tour brought together. 
 
Ironically, a key ‘priority’ is advocating and campaigning against the fundamental and fatal flaw in most policy-making to focus on ‘priority groups’, effectively creating a competition in suicide prevention with a small number of ‘winners’ and many ‘losers’ in this competition. 
 
Towards Zero Suicide CIC, in line with the Zero Suicide Society Transformation (Building Blocks) Model and (Jigsaw Puzzle) Framework, adopts a collaborative, co-ordinated approach, where “Everyone Must Be a Priority for Someone”.  

We have an inclusive umbrella strategy. We don’t prioritise any group, with the exception that any group which is not ‘a priority for someone’ becomes a priority for attention! 

What challenges are you currently facing?

Towards Zero Suicide CIC constantly highlights the fact that “Suicide Prevention is one of the great transformational change challenges of our time”. 
 
As well as considering ourselves to be “in the HOPE business”, we are also very much “in the business of transformational change”. 
 
And transformational change – to get the suicide numbers on a downward trend, towards zero – requires structural change; cultural change; policy change; a change in the policy narrative; a change in the public conversation; a change in thinking among those working in suicide prevention; fresh thinking so we can ‘do something different’ to get the suicide numbers on a downward trend (not flat-lining as the suicide numbers did 2007-2022, or going up as they’ve done in England 2022-23); and ‘fresh blood’, i.e. bringing into the suicide prevention conversation more, and more diverse people with different skills, knowledge, and perspectives to be able to ‘challenge the system’, ‘challenge the status quo’, and challenge those with power and influence who’ve presided over 16 years without a downward trend in the suicide numbers. 
 
So, the biggest challenge is often in ‘challenging norms’; old ways of thinking; current policy approaches that aren’t bringing the suicide numbers down (towards zero); national strategies and plans that are fundamentally and fatally flawed; clear lack of commitment from those with power and influence; but also from those who are acting in good faith in suicide prevention but sub-consciously acting as barriers to suicide prevention; and getting innovation, new ideas, new human contact solutions, new technological solutions, and new integrated digital-human systems that can transform suicide prevention. 
 
The report ‘Moving Towards a Zero Suicide Society’ co-authored by Towards Zero Suicide CIC Founder Paul Vittles and The Jordan Legacy’s Steve Phillip, and the detailed critique of the National Suicide Prevention Strategy (NSPS) for England, 2023-2028, written and published by Paul Vittles, have had widespread acclaim for being “the fresh new thinking and alternative approach we need in suicide prevention.” But there is a powerful and often entrenched ‘Suicide Prevention Establishment’ which is (consciously or sub-consciously) resistant to ‘doing something different’ so this can become the biggest challenge. 

Having a new Government, with Labour gaining a ‘landslide win’ in July 2024, may enable us to tackle some of these issues but past evidence suggests that deeply embedded cultural and structural barriers to getting the suicide numbers on a downward trend, towards zero, will not be easily eliminated by just having a change of political party ‘in power’.  
 
There’s still the challenge of shifting the thinking in suicide prevention away from the fundamental and fatal flaw in most policy-making which is to focus on ‘priority groups’, effectively creating a competition in suicide prevention with a small number of ‘winners’ and many ‘losers’ in this competition to a collaborative, co-ordinated approach, where “Everyone Must Be a Priority for Someone”.