A need for talking openly about suicide and suicide risk, as an issue that needs to be addressed sympathetically and compassionately, was aired at the latest OSPAs thought leadership webinar, this afternoon. People in your midst are struggling; don’t wait until you have an incident, the audience was urged. Think now about how to create a ‘culture of care’.
The webinar chair Prof Martin Gill of Perpetuity summed up at the hour’s end: “Here’s a subject that we need to embrace much more closely; the taboo, the stigma issue is a real barrier to progress.” Once again, he added, good business practice, and good culture and leadership, and engagement with staff, is good for mental health; suicide prevention; and company profits.
The panellists were: Doreen Marshall, PhD – Vice President, Mission Engagement at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP); Dr Sharon McDonnell – Director at Suicide Bereavement UK; Patrick Rea, Marketing Director at the charity for veterans suffering from trauma, PTSD Resolution; and Tim Woodhouse, Suicide Prevention Programme Manager at Kent County Council.
Tim pointed to how the typical middle-aged male who is a security officer is himself at risk; and that security officers are working in shopping centres and car parks that sadly attract people who want to end their own life. Tim urged training, for staff and managers, “and it doesn’t need to be in depth; there are lots of different training products out there; there’s 20-minute online training, certainly in England, from the Zero Suicide Alliance. It just gives people the confidence to ask the question, ‘are you feeling suicidal?’. That’s probably the number one message. Do not be frightened to ask the question, ‘are you feeling suicidal?’, because once you know the answer to that, you can put interventions and safety plans into place.”
Prepare yourself for whatever comes back from that question, he went on. If someone says yes, actually they do feel suicidal, you ought to know somewhere you can refer them to, as available help, any time of day or night, whether a phone line or a website. And let’s be brave as a society, he concluded. That might include, he suggested, using tracking technology, airing the possibility of tracking beacons in place on bridges or at the top of car parks, to send alert if someone stops moving halfway across a bridge or at the top floor, which may be a suicide risk and which can lead to a CCTV check or a security patrol sent.
In the United States, Doreen Marshall echoed what Tim had said. Suicide is very often linked to mental health or distress. She stressed early detection that someone is struggling with their mental health, and intervention accordingly, including in the workplace, for many suicides are adults of working age. She suggested the ‘culture of care’ whereby it is ok for people to ask, and to voice their distress. Asking is not only the right thing to do, it breaks the isolation of the person who is feeling suicidal, she said. If you are worried about someone, don’t wait or think that it’s someone else’s responsibility: “We all have a role to play in suicide prevention.”
Mental health is not being taken seriously by security managers, said Patrick Rea of PTSD Resolution. Highly effective therapy is available for trauma – which can lead to family breakdown, addiction and job loss, besides suicide. NHS treatment is often not for veterans, whether because of the waiting lists, or because medication is offered rather than therapy.
Dr Sharon McDonnell spoke about those bereaved by suicide, who are also at risk of suicide. She urged more awareness and training. She, too, urged people not to be ashamed of divulging such issues.
The webinar went on to questions from the floor. As for covid-19, and whether the pandemic will have an effect on suicide numbers, panellists agreed it was much too early to tell. Covid also cropped up when Tim Woodhouse spoke again about possible tech to track for risk of suicides at known places. If there has been a positive to come out of the pandemic, it has been a focus on emotional support, and society may have more of an appetite to resolve data protection and privacy issues around such a monitoring as he proposed.
One of the more acute questions was how can managers maintain enough emotional detachment to be able to go home after a shift, and have offered empathy to workers and show rapport with people struggling with mental health – in a largely male security industry, still with a stiff upper lip, and some fearing that they do not want to admit to mental health problems, in case they lose their job or have it on their medical record. “It needs training, quite simply,” Patrick Rea said. Training, he went on, in how to broach the topic, and how to have ‘a proper conversation’, to ask the right questions, in the right way, and point people to suitable treatment.
“It’s a problem that won’t go away,” Sharon McDonnell said.
Next webinars
The next webinar on Thursday is on the ‘cashless society’; and on Thursday, March 25, the 100th webinar – almost one year after the first – will see Prof Martin Gill interview another career criminal – this time a formerly imprisoned fraudster. You can sign up to attend free, and listen to past webinars, at https://theospas.com/thought-leadership-webinars/.
