23 November 2010
In today’s world everything is so fast and furious that sometimes we don’t see what is right in front of our eyes. Many bereaved families including myself regret that if they had been able to recognise a sign that something was wrong, they might have been able to safe their loved one’s life. We now have established PIPS Programmes, training that saves lives.
The training is aimed at ordinary members of the community because suicide can affect us ALL and suicide prevention should be EVERYONE’S business. With local people trained to be more aware of the risk of suicide and the sources of help available, the training will make our communities safer, the training is the first accredited suicide prevention training programmes in Ireland or the UK:
We want to train as many people as possible to save as many lives as possible. We have never charged any participant to attend our programmes and we never will.
What? PIPS Programmes is a suicide prevention charity based in Belfast which has developed four suicides prevention programmes:
• Preventing Suicides in your Community
• Preventing Suicides in Younger People
• Preventing Suicides in Schools
• Preventing Suicides in Older People
• Mind Ur Mate
When? Training lasts 5 hours including breaks and is delivered to suit participants’ schedules – either one day from 10am to 4pm or two half days / evenings.
Where? Programme venues vary to suit participant’s location. Group sizes range from 15 to 30 and venue needs to be big enough to allow participants to move around.
Why? The training is aimed at ordinary members of the community because suicide can affect us ALL and suicide prevention should be EVERYONE’S business. With local people trained to be more aware of the risk of suicide and the sources of help available, the training will make our communities safer. Each training programme is tailored to make it as relevant as possible to participants. This means that statistics, helpline numbers and sources of local support will always be relevant to the area where training takes place and the particular issues affecting that community.
The good news is that the training is now OCN accredited at Level 2 the only suicide prevention training in Ireland or Britain to be accredited. The bad news however, is that a registration cost of £21 per person is payable to OCN for accreditation fees and unfortunately we do not have funds to cover these costs. If you would like to pay for the OCN qualification yourself this is optional. This would involve completing an assessment booklet which you can down load from the website but you will receive an OCN certificate and a recognised qualification.
