STOP Suicide is an award-winning suicide prevention campaign which reaches across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. It started life in 2014 as one of four different NHS England-funded pilot campaigns across the East of England and is now continuing via other funding streams.
The campaign is being led by the charities Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and South Lincolnshire Mind (CPSL Mind) and Lifecraft, supported by local NHS and Public Health teams.
Our aims
The message of the campaign is that “suicide is everybody’s business”.
It seeks to alert communities across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough to the warning signs of suicidal behaviour and reassure them that an open and honest approach to suicide is the best way to prevent it. The campaign also aims to challenge the stigma and myths around suicide and the high profile media campaign will be crucial to achieving this. Overall, the campaign hopes to achieve a suicide-safer community.
Promoting a suicide-safer community
The concept of “building a Suicide Safer Community” was first introduced by LivingWorks, in Canada, who developed the internationally – renowned ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training). A suicide-safer community is “one built on honesty, where ‘conversations about suicide are encouraged and will be met with compassionate, none judging and informed responses”.
In a suicide-safer community, people, organisations and stakeholders come together to:
Our campaign
Training
Fully funded places on the internationally – recognised ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) course for non mental health professionals who working / volunteering with vulnerable groups within the communities around Peterborough, Cambridge and Wisbech. We have also developed our own STOP Suicide workshop, including a Train the Trainer programme to increase capacity across the area. For more information please click here.
The STOP Suicide Pledge
An opportunity for individuals and organisations to demonstrate their commitment to suicide prevention by pledging to have open and direct conversations about suicide, to seek help if they are struggling and to encourage others to do the same. For details, please click here.
Resources
The STOP Suicide website includes a range of resources and information to help increase suicide awareness. Hard copies of myth-busting posters and leaflets will also be available across the county.
Get involved
You and/or your organisation can get involved by:
- Signing up to the organisational and/or individual pledge in person or through the website and encourage others to do so.
- Downloading the free resources, or picking them up in person from our stands. These include the self-help leaflets giving guidance for those at risk, or those who want to help.
- Wearing the “I’d Ask badge”, available from our stands on 10th September and various locations across the county after that date (see resources and information for more detail)
- Embedding the STOP Suicide email tag alongside your email signature to show your support for the campaign and spread its message (see resources and information for more detail)
- Becoming a Campaign Maker – and distributing our resources within your community, either by social media or by placing our leaflets, posters and badges in key community buildings.
Interested? Email your full name and nearest town to: campaignmaker@stopsuicidepledge.org
Contact us
Aly Anderson Dominika Karpowicz Carole Morgan Peterborough: Emily Gray
Chief Executive (Interim), CPSL Mind
aly.anderson@cpslmind.org.uk
01223 311320
Mental Health Campaigns Officer, CPSL Mind
dominika.karpowicz@cpslmind.org.uk
01223 311320
Lifeline Manager and Deputy Manager, Lifecraft
carole@lifecraft.org.uk
01223 566957
Director of Peterborough and South Lincolnshire , CPSL Mind
Emily.Gray@cpslmind.org.uk
01733 362990
Our illustrations
The illustrations on this site have been purpose-designed for this project by local illustrator Luke Aldington, who has volunteered his time to the STOP Suicide campaign. Luke has taken the all-important words of Hope, Connect, Talk, Listen, Empathise and Support and interpreted them with his art.
“I am an illustrator by trade having done a degree in illustration. I have lived experience of a mental health condition but as you can see it doesn’t hold me back from my artwork. I am pleased to be able to work on such an important project as this and hope that it continues to make people realise that they can make a difference be it small or large,” says Luke.
Download Lukes’ illustrations as JPEGs:
‘Warning Illustration’
‘Empathy Illustration’
‘Connecting Illustration’
‘Hope Illustration’
