Suicide prevention

The topic of the WHO World Mental Health Day 2019 is suicide prevention. According to WHO, one person loses their life to suicide every 40 seconds, amounting to 800,000 deaths per year. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-29-year-olds.

WHO have some ideas for promoting awareness, titled 40 seconds to action. The following are some of these.

- If you are struggling, take 40 seconds to start a conversation with someone you trust about how you are feeling.

- If you know someone who has lost a loved one to suicide, take 40 seconds to start a conversation and ask them how they are doing.

Here are a couple more of my own.

- If you are a teacher, take 40 seconds to talk about this in class with your students.

- If you are a student, take 40 seconds to read this infographic.

Resources

If you search on the internet you will find many resources for this topic. The following are a few I found and particularly liked.

- Activity pack for workplaces, by Time to Change. Some nice activities and information, such as the way language can stigmatise suicide (e.g. commit suicide, in reference to when it was treated as a crime in the UK).

- WHO videos and information.

- After a Suicide: A Toolkit for Schools, from the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, Education Development Center and American Center for Suicide Prevention. Considers prevention and postvention (action after a death by suicide or a suicide attempt).

Mental Health Week (Australia)

10 October also coincides with Mental Health Week in Australia, with each state adopting its own theme and holding its own events. A theme across several states, for example Western Australia, is Mental health starts where we live, learn, work and play (the same theme as last year), focusing on helping people by encouraging community members to support one another, promoting mental health discussion, raising awareness of mental health issues, and reducing the stigma of seeking help.

Study skills

Last year I introduced a related page on dealing with stress, in the study skills section of the website, which was well received. Now might be a useful time to revisit that topic.