Spotlight is put on suicide

Films and Q&A for prevention day

Suicide Prevention Day will be marked across Perth and Kinross with a week of events next month.

From Monday, September 10 until Friday, September 14 film screenings, talks, question and answer sessions, sports events and courses will be held across the region.

This year the theme will be ‘working together to prevent suicide’ and organisers will also look to promote the Tayside Suicide? Help! app, which contains contact details, information about suicide and a safety plan for individuals to record and what helps them in times of crisis.

Global Suicide Prevention Day takes place on Monday, September 10 and there will be a social media question and answer session on Twitter and Facebook from 5pm until 7pm.

Residents can ask anonymous questions about mental health via the Perth and Kinross Council website and then follow the online feed via the local authority’s social media channels.

An in-person question and answer session will also be held at Perth College UHI from 6pm with mental health campaigner and author Hope Virgo on her experiences of mental health illnesses and the rights of others to help break the stigma.

And, the film ‘Battle Mountain’ will be shown by the mental health charity PLUS Perth at the Soutar Theatre in AK Bell Library from 7pm. Battle Mountain is a documentary on cyclist Graeme Obree that deals with his bipolar as he attempts a world record.

On Tuesday, September 11 there will be further film screening in the library’s theatre.

‘Resilience,’ a documentary looking into the science of trauma and new movements to treat and prevent toxic stress, will be shown from 2pm. It will be repeated at 7pm the following day.

On Thursday, September 13 PLUS Perth will be at Horner’s Plot on the city centre’s Horner’s Lane from 2-4pm. The ‘afternoon of togetherness’ will welcome everyone who has lost someone to suicide into the garden for a cup of tea.

And on the same day, an information stall will be set up at the college’s wellbeing hub (12.302pm) and its residency office (4.305.30pm).

Similarly, an information stall will be on Perth High Street from 10am until 2pm on Friday, September 14. A range of representatives from a number of organisations will be on hand to talk about mental health and suicide prevention.

The film Resilience will then again be screened from 7pm at The Birks Cinema in Aberfeldy.

Finally, on Thursday, September 18, Andy’s Man Club will mark its first anniversary in the Fair City.

Andy’s Man Club was set up last year by Adam Allison and Alex McClintock to help men who are dealing with mental health issues or suicidal thoughts, and meet every Monday evening in the Muirton Suite at McDiarmid Park.

The club will hold a candle-lighting ceremony with tea and coffee at the Caledonian Bar on the High Street.