Children and Young People’s Suicide & Self-Harm Research Collaboration

Background

Suicide and self-harm in this population remains a major public health concern, with 7%-14% of adolescents self-harming at some time in their life, and 20%-45% of older adolescents reporting having suicidal thoughts. Research has called for more extensive investment in innovative school based prevention. Recent policy has promoted a similar focus, with both the Welsh Assembly Government’s (2009) Take to Me: The National Action Plan to Reduce Suicide and Self-harm in Wales and the Department of Health’s (2012) Preventing Suicide in England calling for improved knowledge and awareness of risk, in addition to enhanced training among staff working in schools, colleges and universities. Equally there is a specified role for these institutions in promoting help-seeking amongst young people. However, despite some evidence of effectiveness around screening of students for suicide and self-harm, in addition to gatekeeper training for teachers, it remains that school staff are one of the least utilised sources of help for children and young people despite being amongst the most prominent adult figures in their lives. In order to address these limitations a step-change in research is required, with a need to design more complex, theory driven approaches that are responsive to the needs, resources and experiences of both staff and students within educational contexts.

Project summary

The GW4 Initiator grant facilitated assembly of a range of inter-disciplinary researchers with experience in children and young people’s self-harm and suicide, with a specific focus on school-based prevention. The community held a consultation with GW4 academics and a large number of key stakeholders to map both the extent of the challenge encountered by schools and the potential solutions that the collaboration could pursue. These findings were consolidated by the team who then applied for (and were successful with) a GW4 Accelerator award to verify and generalize the findings in a larger scale consultation. Members of the team were also awarded a major NIHR grant which will support the community’s overall aims.