Project lifts coping skills

HEARTBROKEN Jessica Gallier faced her darkest hours after her beloved dad Martin’s suicide.

She was 29 and although she had a baby son she contemplated ending it all too.

But she picked herself up and started the Martin Gallier Project to give people life-saving “suicide first aid” skills.

In its first year the ground-breaking charity has saved 400 lives, including that of mum-of-three Debbie Greer.

Martin, 55, killed himself in February 2017 after years of mental health torment and alcoholism. Business development manager Jess’s son Leo was 12 weeks old.

Jess went “from the euphoria of being a new mum to feeling absolutely broken”. She recalled: “Rather than confront my grief I cut my maternity leave short and went back to work early. Losing dad turned my world upside down and made me realise with better education we could have been his safety net.

“Everyone should know how to act if a friend, loved one or stranger tells them they’re struggling. Dad was the life and soul but had a long struggle with alcohol. As a family, we’d done all we could to help. It escalated to the point where we couldn’t do more.”

Eighteen months later Jess was in so much pain she could see no way out or trust herself to be alone with her thoughts.

Grief

the project in New Ferry, on the Wirral. She said: “I’d seen the gaps in mental health care first-hand. People were dying for stupid reasons like opening times, waiting lists and not meeting the right criteria for help.”

The first woman through the door was Debbie, mum to Jenson, three, Charlie, seven, and Alfie, nine. She was contemplating suicide after losing her mum and sister to cancer in a year.

Abseiling