Reflections on the past year - Haylis

Our national delivery lead Haylis Smith reflects on 12 months of focused work in our mission to prevent suicide.

It’s that time of year again, a moment to reflect and to look forward.

I can’t believe how quickly this year has gone. It has come as quite a shock that Christmas is now only a week away.

I’ve put the speed of the year down to just how much the wonderful bunch of people I have the joy of working with have achieved this past 12 months.

We published our annual report for 2024-25 in August 2025. This set out the full details of everything we delivered in that year and set out the contribution the work had made towards the long term outcomes set out in Creating Hope Together.

As we start to pull together our annual report which will be published next summer, I realise how much of our suicide prevention work didn’t exist this time last year. Some of the things Suicide Prevention Scotland have delivered in 2025 include:

• We have run two phases of our What if a conversation about suicide could save a life campaign with a third phase in development

• Updated guidance on locations of concerns, clusters, memorials and our guidance for local areas which has some new sections too

• Developed our suicideprevention.scot website with information and links to services for people feeling suicidal or bereaved by suicide. New sections for people working in suicide prevention are currently in development

• Three organisations completed the community led action research work and a further eight projects have been selected and attended the first training session to build on this over the next year.Hearing directly from communities is vital in helping to shape local and national suicide prevention work

• We launched new resources including a set of You First podcasts for people working in working in emotionally challenging roles

• Our trainers of ASIST, safeTALK and facilitators for ASK, Tell, Respond have continued to deliver learning opportunities, building skills and capacity across Scotland to help intervene when someone is thinking about suicide. We’ve also been working with local areas to help role out Wave After Wave training so that people bereaved by suicide get the help they need

• We’ve continued to build relationships with organisations who have previously felt excluded from the national suicide prevention work, these organisations work with some of the communities who face stigma and discrimination which can contribute to higher rates of suicide. Through these relationships, we are looking forward to the development of resources which will be designed by people from these communities for them

• We held three events, Gathering Hope in January which brought together over 70 people working in charitable organisations across Scotland with an interest in suicide prevention. In May we held our main Creating Hope Together conference which was attended by over 300 people and in September, over 50 people who had been bereaved by suicide attended our Side by Side After Suicide event

• We’re in the process of developing new resources to support improvement work in NHS Boards around risk management and family and carer involvement. This has included deep and thoughtful work with a number of NHS Boards and our Lived and Living Experience Panel members

• We co-designed with the V&A Dundee, our Youth Advisory Group and other young people a resource for young people and the adults who support them called Enabling Conversations to encourage discussions about suicide

• We have finished the year by supporting Scottish Government and COSLA in their engagement and development of the second Creating Hope Together action plan. This will be published early in 2026 and will take effect from April 2026. It will build on what we have already achieved and also take us into new areas of work

I know that the work we do through the national strategy is only a small part of the suicide prevention efforts that take place across Scotland.

This year I’ve been fortunate to travel across the country and meet some of the amazing people and organisations who continue to strive in their communities to prevent suicide. I am grateful to every person who believes that suicide prevention is their business and who does everything they can to help. I look forward to meeting more people and organisations over the coming year.

I know for many people, for all kinds of reasons, 2025 has been a difficult year.

While scrolling through social media a couple of days ago, I came across a video of Maya Angelou, I have always admired her views and poems but I know I have only scratched the surface of her work. 

The video was part of her poem ‘Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud’  and as I listened, it occurred to me that it was really what we needed to hear, at the end of this year and also as a kind of call to action for suicide prevention.

So I’ll finish here, with a wish for a peaceful festive period and with the wonderful words of Maya Angelou

I've had so many rainbows in my clouds
I had a lot of clouds
So I don't ever feel
I have no help

I've had rainbows in my clouds

And the thing to do it seems to me
Is to prepare yourself
So that you can be a rainbow
In somebody else's cloud

Somebody who may not look like you
May not call God the same name you call God
If they call god at all
You see

May not eat the same dishes prepared the way you do
May not dance your dances
or speak your language

But be a blessing to somebody

That's what I think.