Young Minds have some great blogs about what to do if you are anxious about Coronavirus and how to look after your mental health while self-isolating.
Please also see our Children and Young People Mental Health page for more useful tips.
There are simple things we can all do to help prevent suicide.
The importance of listening, kindness, and caring are all themes that have come up more often than usual during this pandemic. These are all very meaningful behaviours which we can all use by developing our awareness and skills to offer these in simple and straightforward ways.
This BBC news article gives a great practical summary about how you can develop your listening skills. The article talks about the S H U S H method:
The Kindness website provides tips on kindness that are founded in evidence about why kindness is so important. They have recently conducted a survey on what are the most valued acts of kindness during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Action for Happiness website has a range of resources that are focussed on kindness and provides examples of acts of kindness, and links to the useful reports such as this Mental Health Foundation report about the evidence of the importance of kindness.
A recently launched campaign #feelrealyork aims to encourage people to share how they feel, to support people to talk and listen, details can be found at the NHS Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group website.
Suicide is a very sensitive issue which many of us can find difficult to talk about. Sometimes this arises from people’s personal or professional experiences of suicide. Often, it can be because people find the topic uncomfortable, worry they may say the wrong thing, appear insensitive, or be out of their depth. To help you build skills and confidence to be able to support suicide prevention, the Zero Suicide Alliance organisation provides free suicide prevention training which can be accessed Zero Suicide Alliance website, or also from the Talk Suicide website. It is a short, straightforward and clear online course that can be taken by anyone, providing practical and useful ways to help keep people safe.
You can find help and support also on the www.livewellyork.org.uk site here or York Mental Health Directory here.
Common myths associated with suicide are unhelpful. This HelpGuide article explains many of these in more detail. Probably the most common myth, is that talking about suicide may give someone the idea. This is not true, talking about suicide can help someone who is having suicidal thoughts feel able to seek help. Suicide is also not inevitable and talking about it can help prevent it.
If you or someone you know is feeling suicidal, please T A L K:
You can call the Samaritans 24 hour helpline on 116 123, ring 111 to access mental health services - 24/7, 365 days a year, or contact your General Practitioner (GP). If you do not have a GP or do not know your GP's telephone number, please call 111.