Meeting of the Parliament 12 September 2018
I very much welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate this afternoon and to talk about the strategy that the Scottish Government has produced. I listened to members’ comments about our not having had a strategy in place for some time and about the delay following the publication of the draft, but I think that the Government must be commended for listening to the sector’s concerns about the draft and working to produce a document that is widely regarded as a step forward.
From a personal point of view, I welcome the strategy. Unfortunately, my constituency has been affected by a number of suicides recently, which affected every aspect of our community—schools, friends, families and colleagues—in the way that Clare Haughey described. It really brought home what a shock and a tragedy someone completing suicide can be for the community in which the person lived.
I will talk a little about what has happened in my area since then. I commend Motherwell Football Club for its approach. On 18 July, the club tweeted:
“We need to talk about suicide. A number of young people close to us have recently lost their lives. We want others to know that there is always another way and help is available.”
The club also provided a link to the North Lanarkshire suicide prevention and support web page.
I am struck that many of the action points about which the Government has been talking are about that kind of partnership working. It has to be about working with partners in all aspects of our communities to try to prevent suicides. Motherwell Football Club and its manager, Stephen Robinson, produced a video—it is available on YouTube and Facebook—in which players talk openly about their experience of suicide and encourage young fans and young people who take part in football to talk about their concerns before things get to crisis point in their lives.
It is not just Motherwell FC that is involved in such work. I attended the launch of the suicide prevention strategy that Motherwell, Airdrieonians FC, Albion Rovers FC and Clyde FC have adopted. Players will be wearing the suicide prevention North Lanarkshire logo on their kits this season, and the clubs are providing information and support at stadiums, to show supporters who they can contact to get help.
That is all part of North Lanarkshire Council’s strategy, we need to talk about suicide, with which I have been involved for a number of years. I and most of my staff have undergone applied suicide intervention skills training—ASIST—or safe talk training. I encourage all members and their staff to take up such training opportunities. The training takes up a couple of days and is intense and profound; it is invaluable in teaching life skills on how to support someone and, more important, point them in the direction of help.
I wish that I could talk about all the action points in the strategy. I cannot do so—I must be careful today. Action 4 is about support for families. A number of organisations in North Lanarkshire have been working to prevent suicide and to support young people, including LANDED Peer Education Service, Families and Friends Affected by Murder and Suicide—FFAMS—and Chris’s House, which is a suicide prevention charity in Wishaw. However, although all that work is going on, I know that the community felt that it did not know enough about it. The provision of specialist support and help for the friends and families of someone who completes suicide is vital. For that reason, too, the public awareness campaigns that are mentioned in action 3 will be vital in helping people to understand what is happening.
I commend North Lanarkshire Council for organising a five-a-side football tournament every year as part of the choose life project, which focuses on men’s mental health. Many organisations, including McDonald’s, the local football clubs and third sector organisations, have brought teams to the tournament at the Ravenscraig regional sports facility, which is almost a 24-hour event. Interestingly, a couple of years ago, it began inviting S5 and S6 boys, which has sent an important message to schools that help is out there and there are people to support them.
I want to commend one aspect of what North Lanarkshire is doing. It has produced a very simple post-it pad, on each page of which there is a message such as, “Are you feeling low?” or “Are you having suicidal thoughts?” It has contact information for the Samaritans, breathing space and Childline and also—very pertinently to action point 6—for the North Lanarkshire app on suicide prevention, which is free to download, as well as its online and web support.
I am so pleased to see this report being published and to hear it being warmly welcomed in the chamber. It is a step forward in reducing the number of people who complete suicide.
15:31