Talking about suicide: A guide for college and university staff

Trigger warning: these pages include content discussing suicidal feelings and self-harm 

Shared responsibility 

Mental health is everyone’s responsibility. The university should have policies to support all staff who are in contact with students to feel confident in talking about mental health and helping protect students who may be suicidal. Read more about CREATE a university mental health strategy 

Local support services 

The university should also compile a list of local services and phone numbers to support students and staff, which is easy to access and promoted widely. 

Collaborating across the university 

These are some of the vital steps to ensuring a shared approach to suicide awareness and helping all staff to become more confident in talking about it and taking action where it’s needed. 

• Promote a culture of openness and care. 
• Staff training to grow and develop confidence in these conversations. 
• Peer training and support so students can support each other. 
• Raising the profile of suicide awareness and prevention across the university. 
• Effective, accessible system in place to record incidents of risk. 
• Support for staff who are affected by this work – self-care/debrief. 

Including everyone 

Although this information is aimed at supporting students, the skills and benefits are applicable to staff, and families of staff. It is vitally important to promote openness in talking about suicide, and knowing what to do for students, friends, family and colleagues. It can be the difference between a life or death.  

Cultural awareness 

Research has shown that people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds may find it hard to access support for suicidal feelings. It is important to be aware of this, and not to avoid these conversations where there are concerns, but to inform how concerns may be addressed with sensitivity while remaining culturally respectful. This could be included as part of cultural diversity and inclusion training. 

This content has been adapted from “Talking about suicide: A guide for college staff" originally developed as a partnership between the Association of Colleges and the Charlie Waller Trust and has been endorsed by Universities UK and Papyrus. It was written by members of the Charlie Waller team who are experts in the field – Dr Andrew Reeves, Kirsten Amis, Kath Caffrey – and reviewed by Prof. Keith Hawton at the Centre for Suicide Research.