Preventing suicide in public places: a best practice toolkit is a resource from the HSE National Office for Suicide Prevention (NOSP). It draws particular attention to deaths by suicide that occur in public places – at
- Bridges
- Cliffs
- Parks
- Railways
- Roads
- Waterways
- Historic sites
This toolkit is mainly for public bodies, agencies or stakeholders responsible for these public places in Ireland. It is also for those involved in related health, public health or suicide prevention/postvention responses, locally and nationally.
Suicide prevention is most effective when approached collaboratively and systematically, with strong consideration of evidence, careful implementation, and ongoing monitoring of outcomes. This toolkit provides clear and sequential steps that can support collaborative working to prevent deaths by suicide in public places. They are:
- forming the correct partnerships from the outset
- understanding any data available
- deciding actions and interventions
- implementing actions and interventions
- monitoring and understanding their impact.
Preventing suicide in public places: a best practice toolkit was developed with the support of Cruinn Advisory and a multi-agency Project Advisory Group. The group included expert representatives from responsible agencies nationwide that oversee the public locations addressed in this toolkit, and other stakeholders in suicide prevention.
Preventing suicide in public places: a best practice toolkit is published online only in redacted form. Named public locations (in Ireland, and internationally) in the Case Studies in the document have been removed. This is to to avoid undue attention to, or public reporting of particular sites. This also helps to avoid search engines returning results that overly associate named sites, with suicide.
- If you would like an un-redacted copy of this toolkit, you can request one by emailing the HSE National Office for Suicide Prevention (NOSP) at info@nosp.ie.
Support
Families, friends and communities who have been bereaved by suicide may also find some of the information in this toolkit sensitive, upsetting or triggering. Readers should be mindful of this, and to be aware of their own needs and self-care. Information on mental health, services and support is available at www.yourmentalhealth.ie.
Media reporting
If you are sharing any information from this toolkit – or are a journalist or media professional covering a suicide-related issue, carefully consider the World Health Organisation’s Preventing suicide: A resource for media professionals and Samaritans Media Guidelines for Reporting Suicide because of the potentially damaging consequences of irresponsible reporting. In particular, the Guidelines advise avoiding:
- Details of specific methods of death by suicide, particularly in headlines.
- Referring to a specific site or location as popular or known for suicide incidents, for example, ‘notorious site’ or ‘hot spot’ and refrain from providing information, such as the height of a bridge or cliff.
- Speculation about the cause of death, or about any events and circumstances that may, or may not have been factors in the death by suicide.
- Sites or locations becoming a place where cases of suicide and or self-harm are glorified, which may ‘attract’ people at risk of suicide to these sites/locations.
