What does it mean to create hope through action?
With World Suicide Prevention Day coming up on 10 September, the SafeSide team has been pondering this year’s theme Creating Hope Through Action.
Our lived experience faculty member, Mel Clark, had this to say:
“It’s heartening to see that lived experience inclusion in suicide prevention has, for the most part, moved beyond being used as context setting. We now see lived experience embedded in programs from day one to help shape prevention efforts. How can we make sure this happens beyond the initial design stage?”
~ Mel Clark
Here at SafeSide, creating hope through action means incorporating lived experience into all we do to ensure that lived experience insights are not simply a mechanism for motivation. We systematically look at each stage of a project and think about the implications through a lived experience lens. Here are some practical ways we do this in our learning modules:
Tell: When introducing a new technique, we will always have someone with lived experience explaining why this is important.
Show: We will then role model that technique using scenarios that have been developed in collaboration with lived experience.
Do: Group discussions incorporate leading questions from clinical and lived experience perspectives, prompting participants to think about how this happens in their world.
At each stage of learning, lived experience inspires us and authentically guides our actions.
We’d love to hear your thoughts:
- What does creating hope through action mean to you?
- What are some practical ways you ensure lived experience guides your implementation of suicide prevention programs?