Suicidal thoughts do not mean death is inevitable

With the news that Anthony Bourdain, celebrity chef has died today, just three days after the death of designer, Kate Spade, death by suicide has understandably been thrust into news headlines on both sides of the Atlantic, and beyond.

My condolences to their families, friends, colleagues and acquaintances, on their tragic deaths, especially as they navigate mourning in the glare of the media.
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Finding the words to support someone bereaved by suicide

Few people like to talk about death, and many of us feel awkward around someone who has been bereaved. Alongside our uncertainty over how we should react to a bereavement, is the fact that people bereaved by suicide have significantly less chance of receiving support from friends and family, and there are limited suicide bereavement support services across the country.
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Diversity amongst students’ non-academic experience of university

The landscape of universities is changing rapidly as the sector faces the challenge of annually attracting and retaining more than 500,000 students, many (if not all) of whom are rightly demanding a high quality, impactful, value-for-money education that will provide them with the skills and knowledge to compete in the job market.
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New guidance on bereavement by suicide support services

As part of yesterday Prime Minister’s speech on mental health and suicide prevention, PHE and NSPA have launched new resources developed by us here at Meadows Communications to encourage the development of services for people bereaved by suicide. It is a key ambition of the Government to see that everyone affected by suicide should receive timely and appropriate support and it has been recognised as a key area of action in the national strategy since 2012 but to date support services are very patchy across England and too many people receive no help in the wake of a suicide.
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Theresa May landmark speech on mental health

Meadows Communications have been working on mental health for over 15 years. In that time we have been delighted by the way in which mental health has moved out of the shadows. Few of us would have imagined that in less than a generation we would go from having ‘Bonkers Bruno’ headlines in the Sun and very little acknowledgement or investment from Government for the issue, to having the Prime Minister announce she wants to see a ‘new approach’ to mental heath with ‘transformed’ attitudes towards people with mental health problems by reducing the stigma that surrounds mental illness.
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New Year’s Honours recognises mental health champions

We are really delighted that the Queen’s New Year Honours has recognised the important work in the field of mental health of a number of brilliant and committed people who we have worked with over the years to raise the profile of, and improve services for, people with mental health problems.
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Health Select Committee report on suicide prevention

We have spent much of 2016 working on producing suicide prevention resources for Public Health England and the NSPA. So it was with interest that we read the House of Commons Health Select Committee interim report on suicide prevention. They have provided a strongly worded conclusion and clear recommendations that more needs to be done.
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2015/16 Alzheimer’s Society Annual Report

For the second year running Meadows Communications have produced the Alzheimer’s Society Annual Report. ‘Here every step of the way’ outlines the charity’s excellent year and record-breaking achievements. These include supporting over 110,000 people affected by dementia with our one-to-one and group based services, helping over 40,000 people through their Helpline and now reaching a total of 1.5 million signed-up Dementia Friends.
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New suicide prevention guidance for local authorities

Today sees the publication of the Public Health England local suicide prevention planning guidance to support local authorities develop and deliver effective suicide prevention interventions. Amy and her team are proud to have led the development of this important guidance over the last six months.
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Our Chance, a new campaign launches

Today sees the launch of Our Chance, a behaviour change campaign to gives information and advice to reduce pregnancy risks and raises awareness of things that can go wrong in order to help mothers and their babies be healthy and safe.
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Suicide Bereavement Conference

We were delighted to have been invited to speak in Manchester for the fifth annual national suicide bereavement conference. Speaking with Hamish Elvidge of the Matthew Elvidge Trust, Amy gave the final plenary session of the event, outlining an ambitious vision for a national pathway and framework for bereavement support services.
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Time to Change messaging

Our relationship with Time to Change, the national movement to end stigma and discrimination around mental health, stretches back 10 years to when we were involved in developing the original name and brand identity. Since then we have worked together in a number of ways, including shaping the young people’s strategy and conducting insights research and we are keen supporters of the campaign.
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International Men’s Day – action on male suicide

Today, 19 November 2015, it is International Men’s Day and at 1.30pm an historic parliamentary debate will be taking place at Westminster to consider issues that have an impact on the well being of men: educational attainment, job prospects, involvement with the criminal justice system, physical and mental health health.
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Highlights of the year for the Alzheimer’s Society

Today sees the launch of Alzheimer’s Society Trustees’ and Annual Report that have been delighted to have produced. After winning a competitive tender, we created a concept to explain the day to day impact of living with dementia, and therefore why there is a need for Alzheimer’s Society, with a strong demonstration of how the organisation helps people to maintain their identity and stay connected to their communities.
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Help is at Hand

It has been a privilege for Meadows Communications to work closely with Public Health England and National Suicide Prevention Alliance on producing a revised guide for people bereaved by suicide. Amy led a group of people who have been bereaved by suicide in deciding how the guide should offer practical information and emotional support to others affected.
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New Help is at Hand launches today at the Manchester Suicide Bereavement Conference

We’re delighted that Amy has led producing Help is at Hand, a guide offering practical and emotional support for bereaved by suicide. Amy has spent the last six months working with others who been bereaved by suicide, along with experts from Public Health England and the National Suicide Prevention Alliance, to produce a guide with stories, advice and sources of help.
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Inside Out

Huge congratulations to If You Care Share for their successful Inside Out campaign. Launched just last year they have really captured the public’ imagination this year with simple but brilliant call to action to wear your clothes inside. By turning your clothes inside out the campaign encourages people to bring what’s on the inside out into the open.
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World Suicide Prevention Day

Today we have joined with others around the world who are working towards the common goal of preventing suicide. JMMF continues to work closely with other individuals and organisations who are trying to prevent suicide in our communities. Show your support by using the Twitter #WSPD15. 
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E-cigarettes – courage or caution?

It’s been announced today that e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful than tobacco. Public Health England’s report even suggests that they could become such a significant tool in the arsenal to help people stop smoking that they could even be prescribed on the NHS.
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Becoming a dementia friend

Today I took a 96 year old cousin of my long deceased grandmother to a memory assessment. I’m her only living family, albeit a distant member. It was a challenging morning for both of us. Not only does she now have very limited mobility which makes it a huge effort getting her in and out of the car and in and out of a community hospital building, but given her increasingly poor mental health it’s distressing for her to be moved about, to meet new people and be asked questions when she doesn’t understand what is expected of her.
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Ambitious plans for Dorset’s healthcare

Help is at Hand

We are delighted to leading the revision of Help is a Hand, a guide that provides practical and emotional information and support to people bereaved by suicide. We are working closely with Public Health England, National Suicide Prevention Alliance (NSPA) and an Advisory Group of people bereaved by suicide.
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Great news for women’s equality

We’re delighted to hear that Sam Smethers has been appointed to be the new Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society. Sam has a long track record of working on women’s equality issues and will be an inspirational leader to champion women’s equality issues.
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Let’s not take eye off the teenage pregnancy ball

It’s positive news that statistics published today by the Office for National Statistics show the under-18 concept rate is the lowest for for over 45 years including a drop of 10% on the previous year. It’s over 10 years since we first worked with the Department of Health and local public health teams to devise and deliver effective interventions to encourage young women to delay starting a family.
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Male suicide highest for 10 years

Bleak news today that more men are taking their own lives that at any time in last decade. There’s been a 4% rise to 6,233 suicides a year – equating to 19 deaths by suicide for every 100,000 men in 2013 (compared to 15.6 deaths per 100,000 in 1981 to 10.6 per 100,000 in 2007).
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Zero suicide ambition for NHS

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has today set out a new ambition for ‘zero suicides’ in the NHS in order to dramatically reduce the number of suicides happening in the health service. Recognising the significant stigma and taboo that surrounds suicide Nick Clegg’s spotlight on the issue is most welcome and we hope that it will bring new interest and commitment in the NHS to tackling this preventable cause of death.
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This Girl Can

Congratulations to Sports England on the launch of the ground-breaking This Girl Can, a new national campaign that celebrates the women who are doing exercise and participating in sport no matter how they do it, how they look or even how sweaty they get.  
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Marathon mission accomplished

Amy has accomplished her marathon on a very cold and windy day in New York City. Amy drew her energy from the wonderful crowds – their excellent live music and prolific name chanting. She didn’t stop running and she didn’t stop smiling and waving.
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We need to talk about it suicide. But we also need to research it.

Robin Williams’ death is a tragedy. He was undoubtedly a comic genius who has brought so much laughter and joy to millions of people around the world in his memorable (and at times immortal) roles. So many of his films and prophetic musings have been powerful way markers for my childhood and early adulthood.
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Where you live can make, and keep, you ill

The economic and financial think tank Centre Forum have produced a hugely compelling but frankly shocking atlas of mental health variation to demonstrate the differences in the mental well-being of people across England. It exposes how people’s mental health problems are likely to be both caused by, and exacerbated by social, cultural and environmental factors outside of individual control.
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Employee Ownership Day

With today being employee ownership day I’d like to offer my congratulations to my old employers, Forster, who last year had a management buy-out which saw the company become owned by their staff. It is now 18 years since Jilly Forster founded this ground-breaking social change communications company and I was so excited to see that staff who have helped to build and drive the company now have ownership too.
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To tackle disparities don’t blame GPs

Jeremy Hunt has proposed that GPs who fail to diagnose cancer should be named and shamed. This seems to be an utterly nonsensical idea. Surely, the different rates of detection of cancer, which show UK lagging behind other countries in the early detection of cancer cannot be attributed to GPs failing to spot the symptoms?
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Tackling mental health

I’ve just read my annual school magazine and it has compelled me to want to publically give three cheers to a woman called Emma who shared details of the mental health problems she has experienced since her teenage years, and the impact stigma has on her ability to lead her life as she would like.
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Come Together for HIV awareness

My teenage years were spent with the AIDS tombstone naysayer advertising. So it’s with a gasp of excitement that I watched the International HIV Alliance’s new campaign to instil in our psyche the ongoing dangers of unprotected sex and contracting the HIV virus.  
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Are some cancers better than others?

The Pancreatic Cancer Action charity have today released a new advertising campaign that makes the provocative statement “I wish I had breast cancer”. There intentions are honourable, they are wanting to illustrate the desperately poor cancer survival rates of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when compared to people diagnosed with say, breast, testicular or cervical cancer.
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Smoking promotion on our streets

I was taken aback and confused yesterday as I crossed the road in front of this London bus. It’s over a decade since The Tobacco Advertising & Promotion Act 2002 ended cigarette advertising on billboards, posters and the like. So what on earth is this all about.
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Building the future’s entrepreneurs

It’s Global Entrepreneurship Week and we are delighted that the Prime Minister’s Enterprise Advisor, Lord Young has visited one of the school that our clients, Ready Unlimited, have been supporting to embed an enterprising education.

Herringthorpe Infant School in Rotherham have been working with Ready Unlimited to up-skill their teachers to prepare pupils as young as four years old, for the world of work and business, by teaching about enterprise and entrepreneurship across the curriculum.
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Celebrating Chicken Shed

Last night I attended the 25th Annual Chickenshed Gala at London’s iconic Guildhall. I got to rub shoulders with  Jeremy Irons, Sinead Cusack, Derek Jacobi and Christopher Biggins. But pushing celebrities and sequins aside, most importantly, I got to be spell bound by the enormity of Chickenshed’s message and achievements.
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Brighton strives to become the first suicide safer city

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day, and a broad range of mental health and other well-being organisations unite to use the opportunity to shine the spotlight on suicide and to tackle the stigma that surrounds the issue. I was emboldened and intrigued to read of Brighton and Hove’s ambitions to become the world’s first suicide safer city by September 2015.
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Isle of Wight breastfeeding and smoking in pregnancy work attracts attention of Public Health England

We were delighted to hear that Duncan Selbie, Chief Executive of Public Health England was today visiting the Isle of Wight today to learn about local efforts to increase breastfeeding rates and reduce the high rates of smoking in pregnancy. We have had a long relationship with the Isle of Wight Public Health team and in 2012 undertook a significant social marketing project to understand the attitudes and behaviour of mothers to be and new mothers around breastfeeding and smoking.
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A win win solution to empty houses and weakening community cohesion

The media regularly reports on England’s growing housing crisis, with ever growing estimates of the shortfall of homes. With news last week that there were £6.9 million births between 2001 and 2011, but yet only 1.6 million new homes built (source: National Housing Federation), it would seem as though this situation is unlikely to abate.
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A lasting legacy from the Games

The latest figures produced by the Active Sport survey show that the number of people playing sport has dropped, when compared with levels before the London Olympics. The naysayers who delight in scorning the Games as a vast waste of money  will jump on these figures in delight, and claim the legacy commitments have failed.
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Innovation offers solutions to Councils’ financial plight

The London Government Association (LGA) have warned today that non-statutory Council services will be decimated if significant further cuts are made to council budgets (bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22454459). The LGA Chairman Sir Merrick Cockell has described it as a “mathematical certainty” that there will be cuts to local services.
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The recent MMR outbreak – what do we really know about the choices parents have made?

There are now over 850 cases of people infected with measles in southwest Wales and one linked death. It is reported that 330,000 children aged 10-16 years old remain unvaccinated and the Department of Health have launched a massive vaccination drive.
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Suicide requires sensitive handling

The car manufacturer Hyundai and their advertising company,  Innocean Europe, have made a gross error of judgment in producing an online video commercial featuring a man seeking to take his own life in a Hyundai car.  In an effort to illustrate the car’s environmental credentials of zero emissions, the middle-aged man is shown connecting a hose to the car exhaust.
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To improve cancer survival rates British stoicism must be challenged

The British Journal of Cancer has today reported on a study of 20,000 people across six developed countries about their knowledge of cancer symptoms and motivation to seek help. The results provide cultural evidence to explain why the UK’s cancer survival rates are the lowest of Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, despite similar levels of awareness about cancer symptoms and access to medical professionals and treatments.
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Suicide happens. We need to talk about it.

I want to applaud the personal story of Andrea Sutcliffe, Chief Executive at SCIE (Remembering Adrian) for her courage in sharing her story today, the day the Office of National Statistics published the worrying news that suicide numbers increased 8% in 2011 across the UK (and shockingly 30% in Wales).
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What impact will the new government stop smoking campaign have on quit rates?

This week the government has launched their new stop-smoking advertising. Featuring a cigarette that mutates into a cancerous tumour, the message to smokers is stark ‘if you smoke you increase your risk of developing cancer’.

The £2.7m campaign will feature across TV, billboards and online for the next two months.
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World Aids Day

On 1 December it is World Aids Day, an event that has been marked around the world for over twenty years, and which is synonymous with the red ribbon – the first of what are now a plethora of ’cause-related’ badges, ribbons and wristbands.
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The value of a celebrity’s story

This week, comedian, actor and children’s author, David Walliams is the latest celebrity to publish his autobiography and to reveal his long-standing battle with depression. Simon Cowell recently spoke out about feeling unable to cope with juggling the demands of his US and UK show commitments.
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