Suicide postvention helps to support communities affected by suicide
When somebody dies by suicide, it affects their family, friends, colleagues and sometimes an entire community. A death by suicide can affect people in various ways, some of which may be unexpected.
Death by suicide often rouses attention from the media, so it’s important to have a plan in place which helps to protect family members and others who may be affected, from the time of death, through to the coroner’s inquest, and beyond.
If you’re not familiar with the term ‘suicide postvention’, it’s how an organisation or community responds to support those exposed to or affected by suicide. This blog includes the basic principles of planning and carrying out a postvention response, as advised in the Samaritans Suicide Postvention Toolkit for NHS workers in England. If you work in Wales, or in social care, then this toolkit can be adapted to suit your organisation’s needs.
Plan ahead
It’s important that a workplace has planned for a postvention response before an event like this happens. Samaritans recommends the following steps:
Talk about mental health and suicide
Make every effort to destigmatise discussions around mental health challenges and suicide in the workplace. Colleagues are then more likely to seek support in either event. Time to Change Wales delivers an anti-stigma module for healthcare professionals that could support this stage
Evaluation: Anti-Stigma Training Module for Healthcare Professionals (timetochangewales.org.uk)
Get a postvention group together and appoint a lead member
Form a postvention group who can put a plan together. There may be a number of people that you can draw on within your organisation e.g. occupational health, chaplaincy, every Health Board in Wales has a Welsh Government funded Bereavement lead, there may be a suicide and self harm prevention lead in your organisation too. There may also be people with lived experience who could provide valuable insights into the types of support that people might need
Agree on a postvention approach
In the event of a suicide, you may need to communicate key messages across the organisation to sensitively provide factual information, that can diffuse rumours, and signpost to sources of support. The involvement of family members may be advisable in this regard e.g.: timing, amount of information shared. This should involve the direct manager of the person who has died. Having someone who leads on internal communications could be a member of the postvention group. Consider pre-writing a statement to announce a death by suicide to make initial communication easier.
Agree on the support that you can offer
No two individuals will respond to suicide in the same way. It’s important to consider individual requirements such as their job role, culture, religion and spirituality when creating a support package for your colleagues. It’s important to remember that managers will have enhanced responsibility to support their team whilst managing their own grief, so consider ways in which specialist support might help them.
As well as supporting colleagues, you will need to liaise with the family of the person and be ready to offer them support where necessary by having awareness of financial and bereavement support. In Wales, there is national guidance on how we respond to people bereaved, exposed, or affect by suicide which has additional information in it: Draft guidance on responding to people affected by suicide | GOV.WALES . When you have lost a staff member, there are also the practicalities to consider such as covering their shifts which need to be done sensitively.
Follow your procedure
The Samaritans guide offers a checklist to help you carry out your postvention approach in the hours, days, weeks and months following a death by suicide. This includes communicating the message effectively to colleagues, other practicalities and managing the risk to other employees whose own thoughts and feelings of suicide may intensify during this time.
Remember but do not relive
The following weeks, months and years will bring anniversaries, events and milestones which remind colleagues of the person who has died. This is a good time to offer specialist check ins, support and giving people the space to remember the person.
Samaritans advises that postvention groups work with colleagues to establish ways that they can remember the person who has died but not relive the event.
Have you been affected by suicide? Canopi provides mental health support for NHS and social care staff in Wales. Find out more.
Other resources :
Help is at Hand Cymru: a digital resource with information to support those affected by a sudden death that could be a suicide (in Welsh and English)
Help is at Hand Pages – NHS SSHP
Suicide prevention and postvention, NHS Employers
Suicide prevention and postvention | NHS Employers
NHS employee suicide: a postvention toolkit to help manage the impact and provide support
NHS Confederation and Samaritans Suicide Postvention Toolkit.
Responding to death by suicide of a colleague in Primary Care: a postvention framework
SOM – supporting occupational health and wellbeing professionals
LTF_SOM_Responding_to_the_death_by_suicide_of_a_colleague_in_Primary_Care.pdf
Postvention Guidance: Supporting NHS staff after the death by suicide of a colleague
Universities of Surrey, Birmingham, and Keele
uos-suicide-postvention-brochure.pdf (surrey.ac.uk)
Further support in Wales:
National suicide and self harm prevention programme, NHS Wales Executive
National Advisory and Liaison Service (NALS)
Supporting people bereaved, exposed, or affected by suicide national service
National Advisory and Liaison Service Cymru (nals.cymru)
support@nals.cymru