Change Mental Health
Providing support to anyone bereaved by suicide in Highland and Argyll & Bute.
For our Creating Hope Together Conference 2025, we invited organisations to submit a poster for over 300 delegates to view. Each focuses on a project underpinned by the principles of Time Space Compassion. You can find all of the posters here.
Specialised support for anyone bereaved by suicide
What we’ve done and how it embodies Time Space Compassion
We deliver a suicide bereavement support service to anyone bereaved by suicide. We do this by providing 1:1 support over the phone, over video calling or face to face.
All our work is underpinned by the principles of time, space and compassion. We meet people where they are in their grief and give them the much-needed time and space to work through the many complex feelings that can occur after a suicide has taken place.
Our person-centred support is carried out with empathy and compassion, and we work with people to help them find hope and a way forward through their grief.
Who we worked with
Our Suicide Bereavement Support Service supports anyone who has been bereaved by suicide and anyone who has been affected by suicide. We have worked with family members, friends, colleagues, neighbours, and those first on the scene after a suicide has occurred.
How people felt
The people we work with are truly grateful for the service and for the strong connections they make with their practitioner.
Our support is often described by clients as ‘a lifeline’ and the impact of it ‘immeasurable’. Many tell us that the simply ‘would not be here without it’ which for those of us working in the service is incredibly powerful and moving.
What we learnt
We are constantly in awe of the strength and dignity of the people we support and the trust they put in us to help them through their toughest of times.
We have learned a huge amount about courage, self-expression and humanity and it is an honour to work in this service and within the wider postvention community.
Our work was set up to provide a person-centred and compassionate response and having an open-ended, flexible approach within our support model has been crucial to its success.
What difference it made
Being part of the Suicide Bereavement Support Service and working in postvention has been a humbling experience for me and my whole team.
Bringing lived experience to the role means that I also know first-hand, the impact that a service like ours makes on those who don’t have an outlet for their grief or someone to talk to about their deepest thoughts and fears.
We hear every day from the people we support that bereavement by suicide and the grief felt afterwards is different to other grief, and there is still very real stigma and silence after a suicide occurs.
Having specialised support services available that understand this difference is hugely important to helping people find a positive way forward.
