New support for families hit by suicide could save 70 lives a year
The trauma of losing a loved one after they took their own life raises the chances of the bereaved doing the same. Helen Mcardle reports on a pioneering scheme to help those at risk
A NEW suicide bereavement service set to launch in Scotland this summer could save more than 70 lives a year by preventing those who have lost loved ones to suicide from taking their own life.
The initiative – expected to be rolled out over June and July – will be piloted for two years initially in the Highland and Ayrshire and Arran regions, with a view to being expanded to families nationally.
The aim is to provide “proactive” support to close friends and family members immediately after a bereavement by suicide.
Research estimates that people who experience the sudden death of a loved one are 65 per cent more likely to attempt to end their own life if the deceased died by suicide, compared to natural causes.
The Scottish service, whose creation has been spearheaded by Mental
Health Foundation policy manager Toni Giugliano, is modelled after similar projects in Canada, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland and England.
In Cheshire and Merseyside, which has run a similar suicide bereavement service since 2015, it was found that 9 per cent of people who died by suicide in 2014 had also been bereaved by suicide.
Following the introduction of its suicide liaison service, known as Amparo, this fell to 6% but was zero two years later among those who had received bereavement support.
In Scotland, there were 784 recorded suicides in 2018 and 833 in 2019, with fears that the impact of the pandemic could lead to further increases.
It is estimated that if around 9% of these were triggered by losing a loved one to suicide, then upwards of 70 cases a year could be avoided.
Mr Giugliano, who chaired the Scottish Government’s National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group (NSPLG) and is now the SNP’S candidate for Labour-held Dumbarton, said the lack of a suicide bereavement service has been a “real gap” in Scotland.
He said: “The modelling is quite clear from other parts of the world that people who’ve seen this kind of support, the numbers who then end up taking their own lives are minimal – absolutely minimal.
“People don’t have to take this on. They can refuse it if they feel that it’s not the right time, but they can opt back in several months later if they feel that at that point they would benefit from support at a later date.”
He added: “Right now in Scotland if you are bereaved by suicide, depending where you live, you get very minimal support.
“Perhaps the police will drop off a pamphlet, but they don’t get the support they would if they were bereaved by murder, for example, where there’s family liaison officers.
“It was felt that there was an injustice that families bereaved by suicide were not receiving substantial support because the science, the data, is really clear: families who have lost a loved one to suicide are themselves at greater risk of taking their own lives because of feelings of guilt, and because of the trauma involved.”
Highland has the second highest suicide rates in Scotland, while
Ayrshire has been hit by suicide clusters and struggles with relatively high deprivation – a risk factor for suicide.
It was also seen as important that the project be trialled in both urban and rural areas to test the logistics.
The two-year pilot, expected to cost around £500,000, will enable police to
refer relatives’ details – with their consent – to a national hub which will then allocate a named suicide support professional to the family.
Telephone contact will be made within 24 hours and within the first seven days they will be offered a face-toface meeting. Practical support – such help with the funeral, sorting out the deceased’s finances, or meetings with useful local organisations – can also be arranged.
The service is “supportive liaison”, rather than a substitute for mental health care or bereavement counselling, but Mr Giugliano stressed that it would also be “trauma-informed” support.
“This is a type of support that understands the traumatic event that someone has lived through and we really insisted on the trauma-informed support because we don’t re-traumatisation to be an issue,” said Mr Giugliano.
“Right now, people would themselves be needing to contact a GP but in reality a lot of people in the midst of such a terrible time in their lives are too busy trying to sort out the event – dealing with grief and everything else – that they sometimes forget to look after their own needs.”
Families who have lost a loved one to suicide are themselves at greater risk of taking their own lives