The reality of creating hope together
In her latest blog our national delivery lead Haylis Smith reflects on the recent Suicide Prevention Scotland conference in Glasgow.
For the last three years we have endeavoured to build a community for people and organisations who care about suicide prevention.
We’ve worked hard to build connections with people who felt excluded from our work previously or who felt their voices had been ignored or not been heard. We’ve tried to build links between the national work we are tasked to do and the amazing work that happens across Scotland through our local co-ordinators and the third sector organisations who are all striving to prevent suicide.
I’m under no illusion that we’ve always got things right or that there isn’t more we could be doing - of course there is, but this year, our annual Creating Hope Together conference served as a reminder of how far we’ve come.
A conference for 300 people takes an enormous amount of organisation, building the programme for the day that meets the needs of a wide range of people and organisations, using systems for registration which don’t always do what we hope they would do, negotiating with hotels, organising travel, organising materials etc etc is relentless for months before the big day.
We don’t have an events team who help to organise this, our amazing delivery, implementation and outcome leads somehow manage to bring their skills and time to this while also continuing to deliver the work of the action plan, it astounds me that nothing grinds to a halt, everyone steps up and mucks in to ensure a great experience for everyone who attends the conference.
It is a joy to watch, true multi-agency partnership in action, no ego’s just a shared ambition to get it all done. They pulled out all the stops this year, when people had to pull out at the last minute, people stepped up and stepped in.
I have to pinch myself sometimes that I get to work with some of the most brilliant people, with such can do attitudes, even when they have their own challenges to deal with - they just get sh*t done and the conference wouldn’t happen without them.
Every year, we aim to make sure our programme is interesting and informative.
That we create a space of safety and inclusion, where everyone feels welcome and that their contribution is valued. I know we still have a long way to go on this but it was such a joy to have people from across Scotland and from communities in Scotland who, as we were reminded by our host for the day, are often described as hard to reach, but in reality it is often more they are easy to ignore. I hope they all felt the warmth and care in the room and that the space that was created was welcoming for everyone. I know I have a very privileged position but I felt like I was wrapped in a massive hug for the whole event.
Our programme only works because of the external partners who are willing to show up and host workshops for us. The range of different topics showcased this year was no exception.
I am very grateful to the Andy’s Man Club, Papyrus, RSABI, Police Scotland and University of Edinburgh teams who helped bring their knowledge and expertise to the audience in interesting and engaging ways. I’m also grateful to the members of our own delivery collective who hosted workshops with HIS, LGBT Health and Wellbeing, our local suicide prevention leads, members of our Youth Advisory Group, academics from GCU and service design specialists on collaboration, service design and children and young people - they all helped create a rich, thoughtful and varied programme.
We also had fantastic keynote speakers to open and close the day. Iain Corbett started us off with an incredibly powerful and thought provoking presentation which I have no doubt will stick with everyone who was there, we were smart enough this year to record this and it’s available online for everyone to see here.
Anna Wroblewska finished the day talking about the importance of translation, if we truly want everyone across Scotland to feel included in our work, then the very least we can do is ensure that information is translated and culturally sensitive, I’m looking forward to working further with Anna and the team at WESREC on this and to seeing the hopeful words that people on the day wrote translated into languages used across Scotland.
Our strategy is co-owned by COSLA and Scottish Government and it was great to hear from Jane O’Donnell, COSLA CEO, and Neil Rennick, Director General for Education and Justice at Scottish Government, about the ongoing commitment both spheres of government have to the suicide prevention work in Scotland.
Having the opportunity to hear their thoughts about how local and national government can work together to ensure suicide prevention is built into policy across topic areas, and with the hint that a refreshed Verity House Agreement may also include a focus on mental health and wellbeing, feels like a recognition of the importance of our work.
We’ve had some great feedback from people in the room, we’re working away to pull it all together so we can share it and use it to help shape future events. We have also been pondering the question of who wasn’t in the room, what communities are we still not reaching and what can we do differently to encourage them to come and be part of the Suicide Prevention Scotland community. I’d welcome a conversation with anyone who has ideas on this!
As a team, we don’t stop now. We have a new action plan to deliver, plans to think about for World Suicide Prevention Day, and work to improve what we do and how we do it. But I also think it’s important to stop and breathe for a moment and recognise the conference was a job well done by everyone involved, and will no doubt have helped those in attendance consider what actions they can do to grow capacity for hope in their communities.
Learn more about this year's conference, here.