Veteran Suicide: One Is Too Many

February 21, 2023

Following high interest in our previous webinar events, we are happy to announce our next FREE webinar – Veteran Suicide: One Is Too Many, taking place Wednesday 1 March at 11am.

The latest in our webinar series will focus on the progress of our One Is Too Many programme – funded by HM Treasury as part of the Veterans’ Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund.

The One is Too Many programme awarded grants of up to £300,000 to eight, two-year projects that aim to reduce suicide risks of vulnerable veterans. Three projects are working to provide support to veterans in the Devolved Nations, and the remaining five have dedicated their support UK-wide.

The approaches taken by the eight organisations all differ. Some are undertaking a partnership approach, with another specialist organisation, that has experience in suicide prevention. Others have joined forces with NHS partners to share experience, learning and best practice to provide services going forward.

Funded organisations are also delivering original, bespoke research, utilising the lived experience of bereaved families within the military community, to fully understand the journey to suicide, to feed into future intervention and prevention projects.

Collaborative working is a key component of the One Is Too Many programme with all projects required to show that it will be likely to reduce suicide in veterans through providing direct support to veterans who are at significant risk of suicide and are not accessing support; or delivering a project that will have a clear and demonstrable impact on suicide prevention through changing how support is offered, to save lives.

Join the discussion

The Veteran Suicide: One Is Too Many webinar is shaping up to be a really interesting and insightful event. We invite you to join the discussion to hear about how the projects are identifying and reaching vulnerable veterans; how they are providing a joined-up approach to services; and how their approach to support is different and reaches suicidal veterans who would otherwise not engage with appropriate care.

This event is useful for anyone working in this field, as well as those with an interest in veterans’ mental health and wellbeing.

The 90-minute session will feature:

• An introduction from our Chief Executive, Anna Wright
• The background and ethos of the One Is Too Many programme
• A chance to hear from four One Is Too Many projects working with vulnerable veterans
• Q&A with panellists

We’ll also be sharing a useful takeaway resource for you to use within your own networks, featuring details, useful links and tools from all of the One Is Too Many programme projects.

Meet the speakers

SSAFA has partnered with the Samaritans to work together to encourage more veterans to use their core suicide prevention support services, with an aim of reaching over 5,000 new veterans.

Inspire are delivering the ‘Every Life Matters’ programme, taking a proactive, targeted and integrated approach to identify, address and reduce suicidality and associated risk factors amongst older Northern Ireland veterans.

The RMA Royal Marines Charity are partnering with the NHS Veterans’ Service to ensure that all data regarding referrals is captured to help inform future delivery and to assist with wider research.

Professor Matt Kiernan will also speak on behalf of Northumbria University, about the stigma surrounding the topic of veteran suicide within the military community, from the survivors’ point of view. The Baton were awarded funding to work in partnership with Service families who have been bereaved by suicide. The project will co-produce a foundation of evidence and a model of safety to support other grant holders to develop their services and integrate them with statutory healthcare across the UK, to provide long-term support to reduce suicide.

A full list of awarded projects is available here.

Next steps

You can sign up for free to join our webinar. Simply click below to sign up.

In the meantime, we encourage you to learn more about the One Is Too Many programme via our dedicated programme page.