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Our latest webinar – Veteran Suicide: One Is Too Many – provided a valuable opportunity to showcase the key learning and progress made in our One is Too Many programme.
The Trust awarded £2.1 million under the One is Too Many programme to projects providing specialist and coordinated services that reduce suicide risk in veterans. Nine awards were made to organisations across the UK who have experience working with individuals at an increased risk of suicide.
Each project is taking a different approach but a common theme across the programme is collaboration and partnership. We were honoured to be joined by four of our funded projects from across the UK to share and discuss some of their work on this important and challenging issue.
Working with families
Professor Matt Kiernan from Northumbria University explained the importance of working with families bereaved by military suicide.
“To keep an individual safe, we have to work with their immediate family that’s caring [for] them seven days a week, but also work with those that are important to them.”
Northumbria University and The Baton worked with 25 families bereaved by suicide to obtain detailed accounts of the journey to suicide in the military population.
The project identified consistent themes that run through each family story around how and why the death occurred. Matt explained that it’s not necessarily about bad care, but about disjointed and fragmented care where the veteran becomes lost in the system.
“All the services are there to make a difference, but the thread that connects them all to help the veterans stay within those services most appropriate to them is just not quite there at the moment.”
This highlights the need to advocate on behalf of the veteran and their family, helping them navigate services and, importantly, keep them connected.
Collaboration is key
The importance of working together with other organisations consistently came to the forefront of discussion.
We heard how the collaboration between SSAFA and the Samaritans has allowed these two long-standing and respected charities to combine their expertise. Together, they assessed how they can better enhance the services they offer to support at-risk veterans, identifying overlap and gaps in provision across the board.
Joe Walcott, from The Samaritans, explained how this has allowed them to make recommendations on how to improve their services provision “focusing on what we can actually achieve and making sure that it’s within the kind of boundaries and scope of both organisations”.
Delivering support in Northern Ireland
Inspire Wellbeing support veterans at risk of suicide across Northern Ireland. Vital to the work of this project was understanding the complex nature of supporting mental health needs in Northern Ireland’s post-conflict society. Manager of the programme, Michael Donaldson, provided an illuminating visual illustration of the additional traumas faced by veterans in Northern Ireland. Michael added: “There’s still a significant level of threat in the province. Many veterans live where they served. Veterans still see those that have been involved in acts of terrorism in their local area.
Trust is the key thing, there is limited trust in statutory agencies and support for veterans in the province remains fairly inconsistent.”
The Inspire Wellbeing project has developed a network of support, prevention and intervention services for those at risk; and established good working relationships with other veteran groups.
Veterans in the criminal justice system
Providing specialist support for veterans in the criminal justice system, Project Nova, a project from The Forces Employment Charity, aims to identify those at risk before they reach crisis point. They created a selection of resources and tools which have been distributed to police, prisons, GPs, ambulance teams and firefighters.
Paige Crowther, Project Lead in England, explained how they worked with veterans with lived experience to help them deliver their support.
“We wanted to get the veterans involved that have gone through the crisis point, and you know they’ve come out the other side and they’re doing brilliantly.”
Paige used the example of Mark who was referred to them following an arrest for a domestic incident.
“He was at the crisis point and he was there about to take his own life. We intervened and we got him the support that he needed at that time, and it’s brilliant to say that he is now a trauma support specialist who works with young people – young adults that are experiencing trauma, to support them. So, he’s turned his experience into something really positive.”
The project has been given further funding from the One Is Too Many programme to expand into Scotland.
Breaking down barriers
Representing RMA (The Royal Marines Charity), Danny Egan spoke about improving communication and understanding the barriers in seeking help. The RMA focused on targeted communications to promote help-seeking behaviour, using language that the Royal Marines would understand.
“We wanted to better understand why Royal Marines might bottle up their emotions, and importantly, we wanted to change the perceived belief that it was weak to ask for help.”
The project also recognises the need to train staff and volunteers on how to manage difficult conversations they might have with those at risk of suicide.
Danny explained: “As we improved our assessments, and as our training got better, we really noted the amount of individuals that we were having come forward that were struggling with addictions, and we managed to channel some of our funding to those individuals that were specifically requiring funded detox or rehabilitation.”
“So, the message from us is clear really, it’s talk. It’s break down the barriers. Importantly, it’s listen.”
Find out more
We’d like to thank everyone who joined us for our webinar.
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You can also find out more about the One is Too Many programme on our dedicated programme page.
If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, help is available. Here are just some organisations you could reach out to.