An overview of our schools Programme

YSPI developed the Four Steps to Help Programme for Schools with the assistance of Dr Keith Holmes, a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, and Medical Director of St John of God’s Youth Mental Health Services. We have spent the last two years completing the programme, which is now a comprehensive mental health awareness and suicide prevention programme.

The programme includes:

  • A video presentation, "Let's Talk about Mental Health" presented by John Sharpson, that can be played to classes using a web browser and projector Available Now
  • Class based workshop presented by our trained facilitator currently available by Zoom Webinar only (Limited Availability)
  • A 24 page Student Booklet for each student attending a workshop (now in eco-friendly PDF format for download)
  • A Teachers’ Handbook which provides in depth information and risk assessments for teachers and youth workers (now in eco-friendly PDF format for download).
  • A set of 7 lesson plans which the schools can use to build on the programme workshops (now in eco-friendly PDF format for download).
  • A Press and Media Pack which covers responsible reporting of suicide particularly youth suicide which carries a higher risk of copycat suicides amongst peers.
  • Access to Free2Text Crisis Information Service


New Services

  • Access to local counselling resources by GP Referral HERE Now Available
  • Access to educational assessments and psychometric evaluations June 2022

Following feedback from the students themselves we set-up a text Crisis Information Service in 2014. The service allows anyone to text CRISIS to 086 180 2895 where they will receive back a list of services that are available 24/7 and are also free to call. They can also visit our Crisis Information website at www.ineedhelp.ie. As of 31st October 2021 we were receiving around 8,000 unique contact requests per month through our Crisis Information Services.

Our latest development of the programme will be to put together a video presentation of our workshops which can be included into school packs for schools where they have an urgent requirement for support, such as a suicide in the area affecting the students, where we simply don’t have the resources to schedule a facilitator. We would like to put together around 100 of these school packs for distribution per year although the pack costs are quite high.