The Importance of our programme
In the first 3 months of this school year we have worked directly, face to face, with around 9,000 students in Secondary schools all over Ireland. Most schools we work with as us to work with TY, 5th and 6th years on our first visit and then each new TY year after that. The initial visits, particularly for larger schools, tend to be done over 2 days and can be up to 1,000 students attending workshops. Follow-up visits are usually just 2-4 classes so between 50 – 200 students. All our programmes are entirely free of charge to the schools, colleges and students and are funded solely from the generosity of the public through fundraising and bequests. This charity has never been able to access any state funding including Lottery funding but we feel too strongly about the work that we do to allow that to stop us.
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. As of 31st October 2017 we were receiving around 2,000 unique text requests per month on the text service.
Our latest development of the programme is 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.
A very important part of our role as a charity is to support awareness of the risks of youth suicide, and this often means educating teachers, youth workers, GAA coaches and parents in prevention assessment and assistance techniques. As part of this work we offer training programmes which provide a more detailed background to youth suicide, its causes, risks and prevention strategies. Our facilitators spend a lot of time at schools providing support to the guidance and pastoral staff who receive almost no training in youth self-harm and suicide. This is something that they point out to us regularly as a very high-risk situation.
The other area where the charity would like to improve its service is directly with the students and young people. Although we have a fund to pay for private psychotherapy for at-risk young people with no access to public mental health services, this is not a service we advertise as we could not possibly fund the demand. As you know many smaller schools are also without access to counselling or psychotherapy services, particularly in rural areas.
Our other role is education and outreach. It still amazes us in this day and age that many people will not face up to the reality of suicide, particularly youth suicide, in Ireland. The sad reality of life today is that homelessness, poverty, bullying, stress, addiction, racism and homophobia all increase the likelihood of mental health issues, and also increase the probability of suicidal ideation as a solution to often unbearable situations. Sadly the government funding to tackle these issues is just not there, and if anything is decreasing as suicide ceases to be a political “hot button issue”. An example of this is how under-resourced CAMHS is considering the number of referrals taht they are receiving.
The charity tries to address these issues by holding awareness events around the country, usually in hotels or community centres, to give the public an opportunity to find out more about mental health and suicide prevention. These events are well-attended particularly in areas where there has been a recent suicide. Sadly it often takes a tragedy in the community to motivate people to make a change, and often the family of the suicide victim are the ones who really make a difference, by turning their tragic loss into a positive thing, by raising awareness and highlighting prevention techniques.
As we are “on the ground” with young people so much we are faced with so many tragedies and difficulties that it is often hard to see that we are making a difference. We recently received an email from a young lady at a school our facilitator, Alan, had been working with a few weeks previously which really put our work back into context. We would like to share it with you:
Dear YSPI,
I wanted to thank Alan for visiting our school. I wanted to talk to him after the presentation but I felt awkward and didn't want my friends to see me.
The reason I wanted to talk with Alan was to thank him and YSPI for coming into schools and explaining so simply what we should be looking out for in our friends and family. My father killed himself three years ago this Christmas because he was going to be made bankrupt. It wasn't his fault but he blamed himself that his family would suffer for his mistakes. He really changed before he died, he drank, he was aggressive and rude. He was never like that before but now those are our last memories of him. We didn't know that a sudden change in behaviour was a sign of serious mental health issues, and I am so grateful that this is something you speak about so clearly in your presentation.
My brother didn't take our father's death well especially when we had to have the funeral and then the inquest. Mum said it's a small town with big mouths and we were all disappointed that "friends of the family" gossiped about us so openly. Funnily enough the kids at school were much more supportive than the teachers. At least my school friends let me talk about it and didn't try and pretend that it hadn't happened. My brother didn't have that support at college. He left a note saying that if our father wasn't strong enough to face up to his problems then why should he.
Now there's just mum and me. We moved to a new house, a new town and a new school. I'm just me here and not the girl who the whole of our old town was waiting for her to kill herself as well. I'm studying hard, I want to study psychology. I want to work in mental health and help other people to wake up to the crisis of suicide in our country.
Thank you for visiting our school