Teaching Suicide Prevention in schools?

[girlfriend44]

The three dad's want this to be taught in schools?
How are they meant to fit this into the school curriculum for one alongside everything else?
Even if they had the time there are lots of other ideas for things to teach, one could be how to budget and manage money?

Is suicide prevention the right thing to teach and would it make any difference?
Is it the schools job anyway?

Budget and money management is already on the curriculum so is mental health.

How do they find time?

Schools teach plenty of things that aren’t the core academic curriculum. Most secondary schools have a daily pastoral care session/ assembly plus a weekly lesson with more citizenship style topics.
Mental health is touched on but could obviously be developed, there are plenty of opportunities. “Not enough time” is really not an excuse.
Education is much broader than exam results, of course schools should ‘teach’ students how to manage their mental help and coping techniques.

Yes. There absolutely should be time. We lost 2 students to suicide in the space of a year.

Is it the tight thing to teach? Yes. It's prevention. The attitude of sweeping it under the carpet because it's 'taboo' or 'distasteful' or 'awkward' is wrong. It could save a life.

It could save your child's life.

*right thing

The kids who commit suicide don’t get to use any of their education. So if it’s evidence based and shown to be effective, it sounds like an excellent idea.

It depends how it's done I think.

If it's about self-care, where to go for help, how to ask, what signs to spot when you're not doing well, then that would be great.

If it's how to spot signs in a friend, then it could be useful as long as it's very much done in a way of "if you notice things like this, encourage them to seek help, or get help from so-and-so"

If it's "here's how you can talk to someone who is considering suicide and what might prevent it", then I'd be warier - that could so easily end up making a friend feel guilty if they didn't manage to prevent it in the end. So it would need to come with a huge dose of "it is not your fault if someone else needs more help than you can give", and "even if you do all the right things, it might not be enough", and "they didn't do it because you said the wrong things or didn't help enough". Yes, ideas of what to say and how to help and how to encourage them to get professional help might be good, but it would have to be very carefully done.

It’s essential that young people grow up in an environment where talking about mental health struggles is accepted and where people aren’t scared to reach out for help.

unfortunately too much of the mental health support is reactive (and only when reached crisis point or beyond) rather than proactive

I've seen very mixed results from school classes talking to kids about things like suicide, self-harm, etc. I'm not sure it's all it's cracked up to be and I also am not convinced it should be up to kids to help their friends in this way, beyond alerting adults. Which I feel could easily be the kids take on what they learn.

We don't have lots of time but do 6 different modules throughout the year, one of which concentrates on improving resilience and mental health.
The others cover careers, money management and such stuff.
Each year group also has a weekly form lesson with one specific teacher for the whole year so build a strong relationships with them. They then feel more able to approach this teacher if they're in any particular need.

"Is suicide prevention the right thing to teach and would it make any difference?"

Ironic that during the lockdowns there was such outrage about mental health of pupils etc but now you imply teaching about suicide etc is not a productive use of time and is pointless....

My child’s dad just died of suicide and now my child is broken and keeps crying saying he doesn’t want to live. So yes, it’s important and yes I’d fully support this in schools.

Of course it's the right thing to teach. And it's well within schools' remit in personal development lessons, which already have allotted time in the school week.

But you can't assume that just because you pop in a module about suicide prevention it is actually effective in any way. "Yes, because some people have mental health issues" is really not an answer.