What do we do?
- 24 hour suicide emergency support from our 4 branches that offer a range of suicide prevention and suicide intervention initiatives.
- Detailed suicide risk assessments.
- Free one to one counselling.
- Regular follow up calls
- Suicide bereavement support, advice and care.
- Suicide awareness events and campaigns.
The most unique and used service we provide is our 24 hour, 7 day a week emergency call service, as mentioned above. The volunteers who cover this phone line are trained and experienced in suicide intervention skills and have one main goal when they take a call – to keep that person safe from suicide, in other words, alive. When we are dealing with these calls we try to learn more to help that person and reduce the risk of suicide as much as we can. We also get others involved, such as family, partners and/ or friends because we recognise that they are the client's number one constant support and we are their support.
Following any suicide intervention, we then get that person in for a full psychological assessment. We arrange this as fast as we can, which is most commonly the following day. This is also a continuation of the suicide intervention carried out earlier and allows us to really understand the issues that make suicide an option. The more we learn the more we can help, and the more we can help the more we can reduce the level of risk. We then work with the client to make a treatment plan that will hopefully help them so that they can cope better with life and deal properly with any thoughts of suicide they may have in the future.
In all cases SOSAD will carry out many follow – up calls with the client to make sure they are still safe. If they are not safe we will get them in again to see what we can further do to help. This is the one aspect of what we do that is totally unique to SOSAD and is the part of the service that really gets our clients to trust us and the help we provide.
In approximately 70% of the people we assess, they agree to go to one to one counselling in one of our four branches. This free and vital service helps them deal and cope with the issues that made suicide an option in the first place, including depression. Our counsellors are all trained counsellors who volunteer one to four hours per week to help those in need. The fact that we are able to provide such excellent suicide interventions as well as professional counselling probably explains why we have such a great track record so far.
We also provide the exact same support to anyone who comes to us after they have already attempted suicide. Again our first concern is to keep them safe, and then deal with the issues that make suicide an option for them.
We also work with anyone who has been bereaved by suicide, again, our primary goal is to make sure that nobody else is considering or at risk of suicide themselves. We carry out many home visits straight after a suicide and meet groups of family members or friends as well. We offer practical support and advice at first to help those bereaved to deal with such a tragic loss. When the time comes we offer either one to one counselling or group therapy, should anyone need it.
Along side this we organise annual events to remember those who have died by suicide and offer different kinds of help and support to those left behind. Our most popular example is the annual SOSAD Mass for all victims of suicide, which is always very well received by all those who attend and the feedback is that everyone gets a lot of comfort from the occasion.
On top of all that, we do continuous awareness campaigns to try help people realise that we exist and that we're here to help anyone who may be affected by suicide.
Anybody or agency you can think of has or does refer patients or clients on to us, including, G.Ps, local psychiatric services and voluntary bodies, in turn we use other agencies such as The Rape Crisis Centre, if we feel that they are better equipped and experienced to help. This probably is a major part of our success. We are a community organisation working with other agencies in the community to help anyone affected by suicide. Our hope is that, as part of the community, we can get the whole community to look out for each other.
Thank You.
