What went in to creating the toolkit?

Grassroots Suicide Prevention Toolkit for people with Learning Disabilities 

Some years ago I was asked to draw on my 30 years experience as video director to transform a 40 page legal tenancy agreement into a “see and hear” version for supported living tenants for Origin and Dimensions. So I worked with the tenants every step of the way to benchmark and test my “visual language”. 

As a troubled young man I have personal experience of what it is to have suicidal feelings, I shared my story on the Samaritans website stressing the importance of there being someone to talk to at a time of need. The 3 suicides that have touched my life were sadly all people with learning disabilities. 

Being a tad dyslexic means I have a learning disability too so perhaps it was destiny that the inspiring Chris Brown, formerly a director of Grassroots Suicide Prevention saw my housing association work and got in touch.  

Over a period of about a year we slowly gathered research as there is nothing out there, some was done quite formally via sessions run by Brighton and Hove based advocacy Speak Out with their clients. You can read some of their stories but you will need a box of tissues.

I also spent that time talking to parents and carers from around the world who so kindly shared the intimate and tragic details of their experiences with a stranger. It was the hardest research project I have ever taken on, but it gave me a much better feel for the breadth of the LD spectrum and how best to communicate this most difficult of topics to them. 

As ideas and concepts were developed we were so lucky to have a team of people with learning disabilities who were prepared to get involved and give us their vital feedback,which now forms part of our evidence base.  It’s a tragic fact that they all knew people who had attempted and sometimes succeeded in hurting themselves or ending their lives, so special thanks to them for their courage and commitment.

I spent 18 months creating testing and refining the suicide prevention tool kit, getting the language and tone of voice right was a complex challenge. We put considerable effort into making the character  "gender neutral", the skin tone was approached with the same inclusive thinking. When we finally had a finished product we then ran a pilot for 6 months.  

The degree of approval and positive feedback has exceeded anything we ever dared expect, all the respected names in this area have endorsed it, LD nurses let us run a tweet chat about it. I have 
presented it to an audience of LD clinicians at Kings College and again the feedback was positive.

Having got clinical sign off from Brighton and Hove LD team and with 500 copies out there in the community the vision is simple, it should be a free tool available to individuals,charities, supported living providers and carers nationally.  

The overriding message from the toolkit is how important "talking to someone" is, and we touch on and acknowledge the reasons why this is so hard and more importantly we guide them in ways to start the conversation to get the support they need. We also provide strategies for identifying triggers and simple tools for coping when they feel overwhelmed.

From my experience of working with poeple who have an intellectual/learning disability just because you may have a learning or Intellectual disability doesn't mean you experience loss, sadness, isolation or any other emotion differently from anyone else. 

What is so much harder for people with LD/ID is to communicate how they feel and understand what they are feeling and then to reach out to get help and that's where you may come in.

The toolkit was produced in partnership with Grassroots an amazing Brighton based suicide prevention charity.  http://www.prevent-suicide.org.uk

In order for the toolkit to become a free to use nationwide resource we are now updating the "get help" section and we are looking to any organisations around the UK that do provide support for people with learning difficulties to add to our list. Can you help? if you can please contact grassroots or me, I am @chicustard on Twitter.  

Here is a link to the toolkit video. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNaWcmlEM9c&t=1s

Thanks for reading 

Jon 

Copyright Jon Bryant 2018