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‘Suicide.
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Don’t hide it. Talk about it. Choose Life, the national strategy and action plan for suicide prevention in Scotland, kicked off the latest phase of its ‘Suicide. Don’t hide it. Talk about it.’ campaign on 6th September. Running throughout the month, the campaign included a number of activities to raise public awareness about suicide and mental health. More specifically, the campaign aims to encourage anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts to talk to someone they trust about their feelings, or call Breathing Space or Samaritans. Once more the campaign generated significant media coverage – including articles in The Big Issue Scotland, Holyrood Magazine and The Sun newspaper. It also earned extensive local media coverage, promoting the campaign’s ‘talking’ message and showing what was being done in local areas to raise awareness of suicide and its prevention. A variety of events were held across Scotland to mark the campaign. In Edinburgh, the programme included a free screening of The father of my children, a film which raises issues
All in GoodHealth
Autumn 2010
“the campaign generated significant media coverage – including articles in The Big Issue Scotland, Holyrood Magazine and The Sun”
around suicide, at the city’s Filmhouse cinema. Commenting on the week, Sandra de Munoz, Choose Life Co-ordinator for Edinburgh, said: “Suicide Prevention Week went very well, with a good mixture of events getting key messages about suicide prevention out to a large number of the public. We met some inspirational people, and people have emailed me to say how good they thought the film was – it’s really encouraging to know that they engaged with the events.” Separately, Choose Life is currently working on a film project with Glasgow North-East CHCP, particularly Positive Mental Attitudes, a mental health awareness programme in
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the east of Glasgow. Being made in close collaboration with the target audience, the film will encourage young people to ask for help if they are having a difficult time, or offer help to a friend if they need someone to talk to. With the growth of social networks as communication channels of choice for young people, social media platforms will be used to engage with both the local young people and a wider target audience (see feature on social media and health education on p6).
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The service, which can be found on the External Research Contracts page of the NHS Health Scotland website, not only enables Health Scotland employees to post new research contract notices on behalf of partner organisations, but also notifies approved research contractors of new contract opportunities. For more information, please see the NHS Health Scotland website, email Rebecca Sludden or call 0141 354 2976.
“ Working with partners in local areas means we can link local interventions to national campaigns, and jointly take forward new ways of communicating with people.”
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