Dorest Healthcare University NHS Foundation Trust
We are very keen to promote suicide awareness across our organisation and to see as many of our staff access and complete suicide prevention training.
The free online training supports our organisational aim of raising suicide awareness to all of our staff.
We see membership of the Zero Suicide Alliance (ZSA) as a valuable way of promoting suicide prevention with on our organisation and as community and mental health Trust it is important to us that we can demonstrate our commitment to zero suicides in our community.
Being a ZSA member allows us to access up to date information, resources and training from one site. This is a valuable resource not just for our staff but family, friends and members of the public across Dorset.
There is kudos in being a member alongside other organisations and we feel it gives assurance to the public of Dorset that we take suicide prevention seriously.
We value being a member of the ZSA and would encourage other organisations who are interested in promoting suicide awareness, both with staff and with public or service users, to sign up too.
We are widely promoting suicide prevention across our organisation as a key Trust priority. We now have a dedicated suicide prevention resource page on our intranet for staff and we actively encourage all staff to undertake the suicide prevention training which is available via our EHub.
Our district nurses and school nursing teams are being upskilled to support the suicide prevention agenda. We have trained Mental Health First Aiders in place to support staff.
We have received very positive feedback from staff who have taken the ZSA suicide prevention training so far with one member of staff commenting:
“This morning I completed the Zero Suicide Alliance suicide prevention/awareness training. I found it incredibly useful and feel that this should be made mandatory”
Gifty Markey
Head of Nursing, Therapies and Quality for MH and LD