Guidance documents

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 and 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:

1. forming the correct partnerships from the outset
2. understanding any data available
3. deciding actions and interventions
4. implementing actions and interventions
5. 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.

Using the HSE Incident Management Framework to Review Deaths Reported as Suspected Suicide within the Community Mental Health Setting (2025) has been developed by HSE National Quality and Patient Safety, HSE Access and Integration (Mental Health) and the National Office for Suicide Prevention (NOSP) with the support of a multi-agency Working Group. It was developed in support of the HSE Patient Safety Strategy’s commitment to ‘Reducing Common Causes of Harm’.

The guide is aligned with the HSEs Incident Management Framework, the National Standards for the Conduct of Reviews of Patient Safety Incidents, Connecting for Life, Ireland’s National Strategy to Reduce Suicide, the HSE operational guidelines for Developing a Community Response to Suicide, and Sharing the Vision, a Mental Health Policy for Everyone.

The guide is intended for staff in Community Adult Mental Health Services and for staff in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services – those services that are provided by, or funded by the HSE.

The guide aims to promote:

• Respect and sensitivity for the wishes and experiences of families/their relevant person(s) and staff throughout the incident management process.
• A standardised and proportionate response to operating the HSE Incident Management Framework, across all services.
• Informed incident management decision making.
• Learning from the review of incidents that identifies good practices and areas for service improvement with regard to suicide prevention.
• Improved quality of data relating to suspected suicides that can contribute to mental health policy and suicide prevention strategies.
• Confidence and trust in our governance and incident management processes.

Suicide Prevention in the Community (2023) - Connecting, Communicating, Caring: A Practical Guide aims to offer practical, evidence-based guidance to help and encourage communities who want to get involved in suicide prevention by building their understanding, knowledge and skills.

It promotes consistent and safe messages and provides information on how to respond to suicide in a balanced and sensitive way. Informed by experiences and knowledge built up over the years, real-life case study examples are outlined of activities, initiatives and programmes being carried out throughout Ireland.

This book was produced by Mary O’Sullivan (HSE Resource Officer for Suicide Prevention) in collaboration with HSE colleagues, and other statutory, voluntary and community groups working in suicide prevention in Ireland. It was edited by Eithne Tiernan and published by the HSE National Office for Suicide Prevention (NOSP) in 2023.

• Suicide Prevention in the Community (2023) - Connecting, Communicating, Caring: A Practical Guide (low res)
• Printed copies of this guide are also available to order, under the Mental Health category on www.healthpromotion.ie.

The HSE NOSP has published (September 2021) new operational guidance, Developing a Community Response to Suicide. This guidance is a resource to support those tasked with developing and implementing an Inter-Agency Community Response Plan (CRP) for incidents of suspected suicide, particularly where there is a risk of clusters and/or contagion. It outlines the processes involved in preparing such plans, how they should be governed, led and when required, activated.

• National Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Framework (Higher Education Authority) - National Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Framework
• Wellbeing in post primary schools - Guidelines for Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention
• Wellbeing in primary schools - Guidelines for Mental Health Promotion
• Resources for promoting wellbeing in primary schools - Resource Material WellBeing in Primary Schools.pdf

Samaritans Ireland Media Guidelines for Reporting Suicide

Research evidence shows that certain types of media depictions, such as explicitly describing a method, sensational and excessive reporting, can lead to imitational suicidal behaviour among vulnerable people. Samaritans Ireland Media Guidelines for Reporting Suicide have been produced following extensive consultation with journalists and editors throughout the industry. They promote the highest standards in reporting, depicting or discussing suicide.

Headline

Headline is Ireland’s national programme for responsible reporting, and representation of mental illness and suicide. Their objective is to work as collaboratively as possible with Irish media professionals across print, broadcast, and online platforms to reduce the effects of suicide contagion, and the stigma attached to mental ill health.

World Health Organisation - a resource for media professionals

In 1999 the World Health Organization (WHO) launched SUPRE, its worldwide initiative for the prevention of suicide. This 2017 booklet is a revised version of one of the resources prepared as part of SUPRE which are addressed to specific social and professional groups that are particularly relevant to the prevention of suicide.

• Preventing Suicide, a resource for media professionals (WHO)

World Health Organisation - a resource for filmmakers and others working on stage and screen

This booklet from the World Health Organisation is one of a series of resources aimed at specific groups of people who are in a position where they can contribute to suicide prevention.

• Preventing Suicide, a resource for filmmakers and others working on stage and screen (WHO)

Murder-suicide

A murder-suicide occurs when a person kills others before taking their own life. In Ireland, as in most other countries, cases of murder-suicide are rare, but the impact of these complex events is devastating on surviving individuals, families and communities. This briefing gives an overview of murder-suicide and highlights key considerations in media reporting of such incident.

• Briefings on murder-suicide from the National Suicide Research Foundation (NSRF)

• For policy-makers in government departments - Integrating suicide prevention into policy-making: a review and proposal & Suicide prevention impact assessment toolkit
• For staff and volunteers working in public-facing roles - Responding to a person in suicidal distress - a guidance document
• For agencies providing suicide prevention services - Best Practice Guidance for Suicide Prevention Services (2019)
• For mental health services - Best Practice Guidance for Mental Health Services
• For reporting harmful online content related to suicide and self-harm - Reporting Social Media Content that Promotes Suicide or Self-harm
• For employers - Grief in the Workplace: Responding to Suicide - A Guide for Employers