Talking about suicide: A guide for college and university staff

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

The university’s response 

It helps if the university has a formal plan of how to respond to this situation which can be put into action as soon as possible. There are some excellent resources by the Samaritans to help support the university in its response including their partnership with Support After Suicide .

The plan could include:

• offering support to anyone directly affected (students or staff) such as the person that finds the deceased, or close friends or colleagues, people they live with. 
• wider offer of support and signposting to  support services for anyone suffering with depression or suicidal feelings
• an approach to the media to encourage responsible reporting of the incident

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.