We knew we’d be needed even more in lockdown
The WMN and its sister websites are raising money for vital community charities working to help those hardest hit by coronavirus lockdown. Eve Watson describes the work of Devon charity Pete’s Dragons, supporting suicide bereavement
ALTHOUGH the coronavirus pandemic has dominated our world for the past year, there’s also something else we need to talk about – mental health.
The ever-changing restrictions and multiple lockdowns, plus furlough schemes and redundancies have made everyone feel uneasy about our future and many people’s mental health has plummeted.
But there is a charity in Devon that has worked tirelessly through the lockdowns and ups and downs of the past year to provide support to those who need it.
Pete’s Dragons was set up by Alison Jordan, who lost her brother Pete to suicide. It’s there for everyone who has been affected by suicide, in any way.
Pete loved dragons, he always wore a dragon necklace and his room was full of ornaments and pictures.
After he died, Alison helped her mum clear his room and found a dragon picture that he’d had commissioned. When they set up their original fundraising group in 2010 the Dragons used this picture as a logo.
The service has grown, and Liz Goddard, 33, has been appointed as the suicide bereavement liaison officer for our city and surrounding areas.
The service is invaluable for people who have lost a loved one to suicide.
Alison Jordan, chief executive, explained what Pete’s Dragons offers.
“In normal times, and hopefully that’s where we’re going again, we offer one to one face-to-face support,” she said.
“It starts within 48 hours of a death or suicide occurring, we’ll be there to support not just family members but anyone who’s affected by that suicide. It will continue for as long as required, in the case of children and young people it can be years, on and off.
“To begin with it’s very much around listening and normalising emotions. Helping people cope with their reactions and grief, as well as practical things such as finances and housing. Suicide often comes as a shock. It’s sudden. There can be lots of practical considerations they need help with because they’re also dealing with their emotional response.
“As time goes on we can bring in other things like counselling, grief recovery and prolonged grief therapy. We also do events, socials, we also want to break down the stigma and the isolation that can be felt after a self-inflicted death, so getting people together like family fun days, workshops, weekend retreats, the list goes on.
“We’re always looking to be better, provide better and support people more holistically.”
It took a bit of time to adjust to the pandemic, but there have been some valuable learning curbs for Alison and her staff. She says it’s been extremely beneficial and they’ve made changes to the way they work.
“In the first lockdown we stopped faceto-face completely and we went to telephone, Zoom, Whatsapp, Facetime, all of those things,” she said. “Then we realised we could see people safely. We had to do a bit of a difficult balance around the risk of catching Covid over the risk of a decline in some of the beneficiaries’ mental health. In some cases the risk of decline was higher than the risk of Covid because we can have all the screens and PPE in place, so for some beneficiaries we maintained face-to-face throughout.
“After the first lockdown the government guidelines around bereavement support changed anyway, we were able to carry on face-to-face.
“What I would say is we saw that beneficiaries that were maybe at the stage of being ready to leave and had found their ‘new normal’ and felt they could continue on without us, perhaps took a bit of a knock backwards and stayed a bit longer than they would’ve done, had the pandemic not happened.”
She continued: “For our more vulnerable beneficiaries there was an increase in demand for support, so maybe someone who was having fortnightly contact was maybe going up to weekly or maybe twice-weekly.
“As people began to get used to the pandemic and get used to living with that fear or unknown, it began to normalise. It’s been different. It’s taught us some valuable lessons. We’ve always prided ourselves on being very bespoke
on the offerings that we provide, so every family is treated individually and every person within that family is too.
“So no two people’s journeys through Pete’s Dragons service is the same, we don’t have anything that’s prescriptive, it’s very much one-to-one working and what would be best for that person in front of us. This has given us a greater ability, for some of our beneficiaries they’ve really enjoyed not having to
come to our office for a face-to-face.
“They’ve enjoyed having Zoom oneto-one with their suicide bereavement liaison officers in their pyjamas on the sofa, it’s great! So there have been some real positives and benefits, and we’ve become even more bespoke now.
“Before we wouldn’t have dreamed of offering someone Zoom support or counselling, now it’s second nature. We’ve got even more to offer after this.”
Alison said that Pete’s Dragons is now working with police and public health in a new system they’re trying out.
“We’ve started a new project with public health and the police and other interested stakeholders and we have what’s called a real-time surveillance system now so any death that occurs across Devon, we should be, when the system works, notified if it’s a self-inflicted death.
“We’ll be notified here and that triggers the suicide bereavement response so we’re reaching out to them rather than them having to find us. It means we can gather data around the suicides in a very respectful way with the intention of in the future, start to see patterns and trends in what’s happening across Devon and target suicide prevention initiatives.
“We’re in the very early days at the moment. Our overall aim is to do ourselves ‘out of business’. We would really, really like there to be no suicides so we don’t have to be here. This is our first big step to reducing suicides across Devon to make it become a reality.”
She added: “It’s important to know people don’t have to call us. They can send information on Facebook or Twitter or our website and the contact page.
“If they’re not feeling strong enough or actually able to say the words of what’s happened they can do it in other mediums and we’ll get straight back to them and we’ll do the hard work.
“A high percentage of people who work in this organisation have experienced or been touched by suicide in some way – sometimes you don’t even have to say anything and we just kind of get it.
“So you become part of what we call the Dragons family, and you’re not alone in a really difficult situation. Reach out and give it a try.”
Pete’s Dragons is part of our Lockdown SOS Appeal which aims to raise as much money as possible for Cornwall Community Foundation and Devon Community Foundation and the people they support.
It has been a recipient of Devon Community Foundation (DCF) grants, which helps individuals and organisations invest in local projects. Alison said: “Through the pandemic, DCF enabled us to increase our staffing hours.
“From the very first moment we knew that furlough or any of those options weren’t options for us.
“We knew we’d be needed even more. We also quickly realised fundraising was going to dry up.
“We reached out and they supported us twice to enable us to keep our suicide bereavement liaison officers and increase their hours of work so we could support those who needed it.
“They also bought us equipment so if anyone needed to work from home they could.”