Welsh youth consultation on suicide & help seeking behaviours (English)
Mind Cymru’s Positive Choices Project aims to help reduce the suicide rate across Wales, and promote mental health by improving the professional and public response to the serious mental distress experienced by individuals with thoughts of suicide. Funded by the Big Lottery Fund’s Mental Health Matters programme, the project engages with voluntary and statutory sectors as well as the wider community to raise awareness of suicide, break down stigma, and increase the perception that suicide is everybody’s business.
Positive Choices is not just about preventing suicide: many of those who feel suicidal will never go on to attempt suicide, but having thoughts of suicide results in acute and extreme emotional and mental distress. The National Office for Statistics estimates that 3.4 per cent of the population has thoughts of suicide in any one year – the Samaritans put it even higher at 5 per cent. This means that between 100,000–150,000 people in Wales are having thoughts of suicide. The Welsh suicide prevention action plan Talk to Me – a National Action Plan to Reduce Suicide and Self harm in Wales 2009–2014 (Welsh Assembly Government, 2009), emphasises the importance of early intervention and the role that all front-line services should play in responding to individuals in need, at the point at which they request help.
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