What's your experience with suicide awareness outreach campaigns?
July 22, 2019 9:16 AM Subscribe
I'm looking for insight and background information pertaining to campaigns which strive to increase suicide awareness and prevention. This could be outreach efforts, activities, events, messaging, advertising and promotion and swag, etc. I’m also interested in any portion of a suicide awareness campaign that provided significant meaning to you, and why.
Was there something about the efficacy of the outreach/event itself that brought (hopefully new) meaning? Maybe the outreach effort contained facts about suicide, but were there also alternative forms of communication that brought meaning, and, if so, what was that information and how was it delivered? Did the advertising and promotion contain a specific and indelible piece of meaning, and how was that delivered?
Please feel free to draw from other awareness campaigns that are not centered on suicide, as they may be instructive. Likewise, please feel free to chime in with examples of suicide awareness outreach efforts that missed the mark or were off-putting.
This question does not necessarily come with rigid constraints or parameters, so I hope I asked my question in a clear manner. I’m mostly interested in examples of ideas, however small, that worked.
Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.
Was there something about the efficacy of the outreach/event itself that brought (hopefully new) meaning? Maybe the outreach effort contained facts about suicide, but were there also alternative forms of communication that brought meaning, and, if so, what was that information and how was it delivered? Did the advertising and promotion contain a specific and indelible piece of meaning, and how was that delivered?
Please feel free to draw from other awareness campaigns that are not centered on suicide, as they may be instructive. Likewise, please feel free to chime in with examples of suicide awareness outreach efforts that missed the mark or were off-putting.
This question does not necessarily come with rigid constraints or parameters, so I hope I asked my question in a clear manner. I’m mostly interested in examples of ideas, however small, that worked.
Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.
Over the past few years I have been a student in several lectures/afternoon-long seminars about suicide prevention and interacting with suicidal individuals. The aspect that has been most helpful to me has been the emphasis on the importance of outright asking an apparently suicidal person if they are contemplating suicide. It was important to me to hear that this is an appropriate course of action and won't "make" someone start thinking of killing themselves. Thanks to these experiences I have felt better prepared in the two situations when I have needed to ask the question - no dancing around the matter out of fear of making things worse.
posted by DingoMutt at 11:17 AM on July 22, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by DingoMutt at 11:17 AM on July 22, 2019 [6 favorites]
I've often been struck the National Rail/Samaritans/British Transport Police suicide prevention campaign in the UK. There are a lot of rural level crossings with barriers that are easy to get past near where I live, and I lost a colleague this way in 2012.
The Samaritans advertise their phone number visibly* at every level crossing and at other points where a person is likely to get near a train track. They have advertising at train stations, on posters and at the ticket gates. In many areas their number is printed on the back of train tickets. I'm not sure whether all these forms of awareness are all active all the time or if they're components of individual campaigns, but they're all forms of awareness media that I'm personally very aware of having seen a lot of when travelling by rail.
*big bright green & white signs; I had to report a fault with a level crossing a few months ago and there was no contact number for Network Rail, only for the Samaritans, which led to a misunderstanding whereby my mother in law asked if I'd tried calling that number yet...
posted by terretu at 11:29 AM on July 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
The Samaritans advertise their phone number visibly* at every level crossing and at other points where a person is likely to get near a train track. They have advertising at train stations, on posters and at the ticket gates. In many areas their number is printed on the back of train tickets. I'm not sure whether all these forms of awareness are all active all the time or if they're components of individual campaigns, but they're all forms of awareness media that I'm personally very aware of having seen a lot of when travelling by rail.
*big bright green & white signs; I had to report a fault with a level crossing a few months ago and there was no contact number for Network Rail, only for the Samaritans, which led to a misunderstanding whereby my mother in law asked if I'd tried calling that number yet...
posted by terretu at 11:29 AM on July 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
Honestly, in my experience here in the US, the ubiquity of the national Suicide Prevention Hotline number has been the most visible "outreach campaign" I've become aware of. Every health professional (not just psych docs) I've ever encountered have immediately asked if I had the number, once they understand how bad my depression can be.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:14 PM on July 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 12:14 PM on July 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
Darkness into light was set up 10 years ago in Ireland as a fundraiser for Pieta House, a suicide prevention and counselling service. Every year people get up before dawn and do a 5 km walk as the sun rises to symbolise moving from darkness into light. It is used to raise funds and awareness and now takes place in 100s of places around the world with 100s of thousands of participants with the funds raised being shared between Pieta House and local organisations.
In the lead up to the event there is lots of awareness raising and it gives a good opportunity to discuss mental health issues and suicide. Particularly in the Irish community where I am everyone is aware of it and it leads to a lot of positive engagement and destigmatises discussion around suicide and mental health.
Before each walk there are speakers including local politicians or celebrities and people who have been affected by suicide. Then the group of people walk the 5km together, normally lit by candles or such and it's a very moving experience.
posted by roolya_boolya at 12:20 PM on July 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
In the lead up to the event there is lots of awareness raising and it gives a good opportunity to discuss mental health issues and suicide. Particularly in the Irish community where I am everyone is aware of it and it leads to a lot of positive engagement and destigmatises discussion around suicide and mental health.
Before each walk there are speakers including local politicians or celebrities and people who have been affected by suicide. Then the group of people walk the 5km together, normally lit by candles or such and it's a very moving experience.
posted by roolya_boolya at 12:20 PM on July 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
I hang out in depression-focused internet communities and I think the audience for outreach is split into two groups: low information and high information. The first group is usually younger, recently started feeling depressed, or part of a religion or social group that has a high mental health stigma. Things like the hotline are good for these people because they may not have heard of it, although there's a chance they won't be able to call it due to being outside the US or whatever.
On the other hand if you're a heavy internet user or a long term sufferer, the constant outreach about hotline or other "quick fix" solutions can actually make you feel worse. I've heard a lot of bad experiences from this group from actually calling the hotline and they seem pretty jaded, so constantly being reminded about a failed solution just feels worse. They're also pretty bitter about people pushing outreach programs instead of actually listening to and engaging with individuals who need help. More "outreach" won't help this group much, unless it's for something specific like a local low cost therapy solution, or something innovative. So I guess it would depend on who your audience is.
posted by JZig at 1:37 PM on July 22, 2019 [5 favorites]
On the other hand if you're a heavy internet user or a long term sufferer, the constant outreach about hotline or other "quick fix" solutions can actually make you feel worse. I've heard a lot of bad experiences from this group from actually calling the hotline and they seem pretty jaded, so constantly being reminded about a failed solution just feels worse. They're also pretty bitter about people pushing outreach programs instead of actually listening to and engaging with individuals who need help. More "outreach" won't help this group much, unless it's for something specific like a local low cost therapy solution, or something innovative. So I guess it would depend on who your audience is.
posted by JZig at 1:37 PM on July 22, 2019 [5 favorites]
I have had some rather awful experiences with suicide awareness programs. The worst was a session in a daylong work training event which asked me to discuss facts and statistics about suicide with a medium group of coworkers. Multiple people close to me have attempted suicide, and a couple of the other people in that group had lost loved ones. Meanwhile, some people in the discussion group had genuinely never thought about suicide before, and responded to the discussion questions with a sort of clueless positivity ("If we just let them know we care...") that I found exceedingly painful. I felt trapped between lying to my colleagues and disclosing extremely personal information.
The second-worst was a display with names of individual suicide victims (and a hotline number, there's always the hotline) in a central area of a college campus, which I stumbled upon unexpectedly; I didn't know how long it was supposed to last, so I didn't know how long I needed to avoid walking through the most obvious part of that campus.
If you're contemplating any sort of broad-based campaign, please remember that some people in your target audience are already very aware of suicide. You need to offer easy, low-fuss ways to opt out.
Also, please discuss the details of your plan with a mental health professional (if you are not one yourself). There are some ways of calling attention to suicide that can actually increase the chances of an attempt.
posted by yarntheory at 4:35 PM on July 22, 2019 [6 favorites]
The second-worst was a display with names of individual suicide victims (and a hotline number, there's always the hotline) in a central area of a college campus, which I stumbled upon unexpectedly; I didn't know how long it was supposed to last, so I didn't know how long I needed to avoid walking through the most obvious part of that campus.
If you're contemplating any sort of broad-based campaign, please remember that some people in your target audience are already very aware of suicide. You need to offer easy, low-fuss ways to opt out.
Also, please discuss the details of your plan with a mental health professional (if you are not one yourself). There are some ways of calling attention to suicide that can actually increase the chances of an attempt.
posted by yarntheory at 4:35 PM on July 22, 2019 [6 favorites]
I am one of those people who is very cynical and jaded about suicide prevention and awareness. Just sharing the hotline is certainly not enough, and the people who most need the hotline often do not appreciate the implication they do not know it or have not tried it (or one of the many other Mainstream Suicide Prevention things), or the people who brush off the bad experiences they may have had with that or other things, and yet most prevention refuses to engage with suicide with anything but surface level platitudes.
The first step to any good suicide prevention campaign that makes a real difference, and I am not convinced such a thing exists in the present landscape, is actually engaging with the published scientific research about suicide. Jason Cherkis is a writer I recommend, take a look at Joiner's work and the interpersonal model(s) of suicide, the research done by AFSP, the idea of suicide as a social justice and communal problem. The big mistake even the most well-meaning people make is acting like suicide isn't in any way caused by the way society deals with suicide or the inequalities that exist with access of care, or ableism.
Kindness and outreach is almost always intermingled with victim-blaming and naiveté about what being suicidal actually looks like. And certainly, safety is a consideration: the risks of hospitalization and the abuses that happen within the psychiatric system must be considered before giving any kind of advice in that zone, especially to people who are multiply marginalized. Avoid "just got to the hospital", or "seek help" or "just reach out". People who are in their literal darkest hour need help doing those things, need a support system, need to be considered individual humans with unique situations, not to be rewarded only after bootstrapping their way through hell. People need to know their rights, and know what a crisis respite center is, how to make a psychiatric advance directive, how to afford low cost meds and how to access therapists with the skill to treat suicidal ideation effectively, for real, know they have more than one option.
Center lived experience. Listen to survivors, and people who struggle with ideation, however uncomfortable their stories might be to hear for someone less in it, and what they say they need. Live Through This is a great organization that profiles attempt survivors from a position of lived experience. Plenty of people have written books about what it's like to attempt and survive and live and etc. Also...don't trust or involve the police.
posted by colorblock sock at 12:08 AM on July 23, 2019 [7 favorites]
The first step to any good suicide prevention campaign that makes a real difference, and I am not convinced such a thing exists in the present landscape, is actually engaging with the published scientific research about suicide. Jason Cherkis is a writer I recommend, take a look at Joiner's work and the interpersonal model(s) of suicide, the research done by AFSP, the idea of suicide as a social justice and communal problem. The big mistake even the most well-meaning people make is acting like suicide isn't in any way caused by the way society deals with suicide or the inequalities that exist with access of care, or ableism.
Kindness and outreach is almost always intermingled with victim-blaming and naiveté about what being suicidal actually looks like. And certainly, safety is a consideration: the risks of hospitalization and the abuses that happen within the psychiatric system must be considered before giving any kind of advice in that zone, especially to people who are multiply marginalized. Avoid "just got to the hospital", or "seek help" or "just reach out". People who are in their literal darkest hour need help doing those things, need a support system, need to be considered individual humans with unique situations, not to be rewarded only after bootstrapping their way through hell. People need to know their rights, and know what a crisis respite center is, how to make a psychiatric advance directive, how to afford low cost meds and how to access therapists with the skill to treat suicidal ideation effectively, for real, know they have more than one option.
Center lived experience. Listen to survivors, and people who struggle with ideation, however uncomfortable their stories might be to hear for someone less in it, and what they say they need. Live Through This is a great organization that profiles attempt survivors from a position of lived experience. Plenty of people have written books about what it's like to attempt and survive and live and etc. Also...don't trust or involve the police.
posted by colorblock sock at 12:08 AM on July 23, 2019 [7 favorites]
I'm mildly surprised nobody has mentioned this thread, unless I missed it.
posted by Armed Only With Hubris at 6:04 AM on July 23, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Armed Only With Hubris at 6:04 AM on July 23, 2019 [1 favorite]
Another one who's been really disillusioned with a lot of suicide awareness campaigns.
First, their timing is often awkward--like when Kate Spade, Robin Williams, and Anthony Bourdain suicided, there was all sorts of stuff everywhere, like a trendy virtue signaling, but a lot of that missed the mark. I felt like the messages of that programming were that if you're suicidal, you do vague things like "reach out" or "get help," and then, whew, that's over.
But of course it's not that simple, especially for those of us--and there are a lot of us--who actually try to reach out and get help in a number of ways. But clinics won't take new patients, counselors or triage specialists won't return phone calls, there are no psych beds or the psych hospitals just make everything worse. So I'd be interested in seeing campaigns talk about what it actually means to get help, to ask for help, to be persistent in seeking it out.
On a similar note, we tell people that if their loved ones are suicidal to encourage them to get help. But, again, what does that look like? Do we say "Hey, friend, call this hotline" and call it a day? Or do we research options in an area and often to go with a friend? Or at least see if our friend would be up for some distraction and go out for some fun time?
Also, quite frankly, those campaigns often seem focused on people who are right on the edge of the cliff, but not people who are like a foot away. If we did more to support people before they get to the precipice, we'd all be better off and we'd free up resources to help others. What if we looked for earlier warning signs and thought of intervening then? What if we texted / called people more regularly, not just when things were falling apart?
Another important thing: many, many suicides happen shortly after patients are released from in-patient settings. Adjusting back into the world is very, very hard. It's not just, "woo, hoo, freedom!" Even if meds are optimized and therapy is in place, re-entry is really really hard, especially if it comes after a full-on suicide attempt. I think it would be helpful to educate people about that--that you don't just get fixed and re-enter your life, that the months after are tender and fragile.
Finally, not true of all campaigns but I've heard this enough to barf it up in my sleep: can we please stop telling severely depressed / suicidal people that they really need to be doing volunteer work?
posted by mermaidcafe at 7:13 AM on July 23, 2019 [4 favorites]
First, their timing is often awkward--like when Kate Spade, Robin Williams, and Anthony Bourdain suicided, there was all sorts of stuff everywhere, like a trendy virtue signaling, but a lot of that missed the mark. I felt like the messages of that programming were that if you're suicidal, you do vague things like "reach out" or "get help," and then, whew, that's over.
But of course it's not that simple, especially for those of us--and there are a lot of us--who actually try to reach out and get help in a number of ways. But clinics won't take new patients, counselors or triage specialists won't return phone calls, there are no psych beds or the psych hospitals just make everything worse. So I'd be interested in seeing campaigns talk about what it actually means to get help, to ask for help, to be persistent in seeking it out.
On a similar note, we tell people that if their loved ones are suicidal to encourage them to get help. But, again, what does that look like? Do we say "Hey, friend, call this hotline" and call it a day? Or do we research options in an area and often to go with a friend? Or at least see if our friend would be up for some distraction and go out for some fun time?
Also, quite frankly, those campaigns often seem focused on people who are right on the edge of the cliff, but not people who are like a foot away. If we did more to support people before they get to the precipice, we'd all be better off and we'd free up resources to help others. What if we looked for earlier warning signs and thought of intervening then? What if we texted / called people more regularly, not just when things were falling apart?
Another important thing: many, many suicides happen shortly after patients are released from in-patient settings. Adjusting back into the world is very, very hard. It's not just, "woo, hoo, freedom!" Even if meds are optimized and therapy is in place, re-entry is really really hard, especially if it comes after a full-on suicide attempt. I think it would be helpful to educate people about that--that you don't just get fixed and re-enter your life, that the months after are tender and fragile.
Finally, not true of all campaigns but I've heard this enough to barf it up in my sleep: can we please stop telling severely depressed / suicidal people that they really need to be doing volunteer work?
posted by mermaidcafe at 7:13 AM on July 23, 2019 [4 favorites]
We recently had RUOK day here in Australia, a day that's coming with increasing criticism. The idea is you reach out to people at work or in your community to check in with them. However, it's very much an awareness raising campaign, with little to actually support those who aren't okay.
posted by daybeforetheday at 2:15 AM on October 7, 2019
posted by daybeforetheday at 2:15 AM on October 7, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by epanalepsis at 9:33 AM on July 22, 2019 [2 favorites]