 How and why to make a suicide safety plan it's quick It's easy and it's an effective way of trying to proactively stay safe if you're someone at risk of suicide or self-harm Or you're supporting someone who is so I'm going to walk you through what a suicide safety plan looks like I'd also recommend that you go to staying safe net where you can either download a PDF template where you can create Your suicide safety plan or where you can actually fill in an online version And the nice thing about the online version is it gives you suggestions for answers to each of the questions in your plan But like in its most basic form a suicide safety plan doesn't have to follow a template It's really for you or the person you're supporting and it's about creating something that works for you And it is your kind of go-to How to guide for those moments when everything becomes too much and you're not managing anymore and you're at risk of harm or death It gives you an alternative essentially So in our suicide safety plan Suggested template so this is Alice Colking and colleagues staying safe dot net use this this approach and it works It's worked for me So the first thing we think about is our ideas for staying safe right now This is about how do we get through the next minute? So those moments when we're completely overwhelmed and we can think of nothing other than death right now This is how we get through that first minute. So this can be all sorts of things It might be you know, you're kind of literally giving yourself a minute It might be listening to one song and then thinking again might be kind of some sort of distraction techniques It there's there's loads of different things it can be here but what you're basically trying to do here is is try and like keep yourself safe for that one minute and Just buy yourself a tiny bit of time so that you get over that initial massive panic So you can then begin to engage with the rest of your suicide safety plan So it's like the right now aha moment. What do we do now? Okay? Okay, the next thing number two we think about how to make the situation safer So one of the things that massively impacts on outcomes for people who are suicidal is whether or not they have access to lethal means and so if we Struggle with those thoughts and feelings ourself then we can think about reducing our access to those kinds of means So for example, I have all my medication other than like a day or two is worth in a safe And my husband keeps it all safe. So I could not easily access Amounts of medication that would be lethal to me for example So you can think about yeah reducing access to means the other thing you can think about is whether you need to know in Your plan if there are places that you should avoid so for me again I always know that if I'm panicking I mustn't go anywhere near to train and rail stations And so I might make a note about that There are certain places that I need to avoid and that for me really trigger those kind of suicidal Urges so you might make a note of how you can make your situation your environment safe either by removing things or Taking yourself to a certain place or away from a certain place of thinking about the kind of the environment surroundings And next we have to think about things that we can use to kind of calm ourselves So remembering that when we're feeling in this kind of heightened emotional state things are really really tricky And we want to think what can we do to try and emotionally regulate someone to kind of try and bring the mood come Or we might do things like cuddle our dog We we might be thinking about like listening to calming music or our mindfulness or yoga or breathing techniques again With all of this it's really about what works for you or for the person you're supporting So there's not like a one-size-fits-all solution But ideally thinking of what helps me to calm down when I'm up here What helps me to come down a little bit? Then we have a think about things that might distract us So we might want to just try and like take our thoughts away From the the the thoughts and the ideation around the suicide and actually just to keep our mind busy with other stuff for a while So here might be where you might put in like your coloring or Like physical activity going for a walk or also anything really that could distract you pick up the phone Talk to a friend watch a video, you know anything whatever works for you But it's about trying to remove your mind From the suicidal thoughts and feelings and get your mind busy with something else Distracting yourself from those difficult thoughts with difficult feelings Then we have a think about who who are the people that can support you? Who are the people that you could pick the phone up to when you are in a heightened emotional state? Who is there for you and making sure that within our plan? We make it really clear who we can contact and how we can contact them So we've got all those details there if we need them and almost sometimes It's helpful to have like a reminder to self that it's okay to reach out and ask for help for these people and to prepare Those people that you know you're on my list. Is it okay if I call you at times of high stress and yeah We we mostly do have someone that we can talk to in those moments However, we can also think about whether there are other ways that we might reach out So something like Childline or Samaritans for example Might be hotlines that we might call if we feel unable to pick the phone up to a friend And finally it's a good idea to include contact details of any like professional services that you should be You should be contacting at this time So if you are under the care of community mental health team They might have given you contact details that you should you should contact at times of crisis Equally, you might be reminding yourself of like where your nearest A&E is if that feels like an appropriate thing It depends on what's kind of available to you locally really But yeah, if there are kind of professional people that you should be reaching out to so when you're putting the plan together It doesn't have to be perfect and it might change and flex over time So do add to it as you think of different things that might be helpful And if you try some of these things and they don't work so well, then you know strike them out and lose them It's flexible. It's your plan. There's no right and wrong way of doing this The key thing is having thought about it having thought about the where the who the how the what if you're in this moment of crisis Because when you're in that moment of crisis, it's so so hard to find your way out of it But if you've got this kind of how-to guide that you've written beforehand, it really really helps now once you've created the plan It can be really helpful to share it with those who are close to you who might want to support you in these difficult moments Not least because if you've got ideas like things that calm you and distraction techniques in there Then they can help you to employ those techniques So they might know for example that there's a particular breathing strategy that you like and they could encourage you to use that in these moments for example, and I would also encourage that if you are someone who Has, you know need of a safety plan like this that you do try and carry it with you Or maybe keep a copy on your phone or something like that because you don't really know when you're going to need it and having it Kind of filed away somewhere isn't really so useful And then finally I guess the final thing I'd say about it is that although we talk about this as a suicide safety plan You can also use a lot of the ideas that you've developed here to proactively Stop yourself getting to that kind of crisis point So don't feel like this is just your plan for when everything goes wrong and you are in complete crisis If you feel yourself kind of going that way actually think about okay, let's have a look at the plan Who can I talk to what can I do what would help calm me? What would help distract me at this time in order to try and stop you kind of escalating to that crisis moment So don't feel like you can only use it kind of in an emergency. This can be a plan that you more proactively use And I really hope that the idea is helpful And again, I would really encourage that you try out staying safe net Where you can either download a PDF plan or you can create your online version and then print it off And as I say when you create the online version, it gives you loads of different suggestions to help you fill out the boxes as well Which is super helpful It's a great website and there's also lots of other resources on the website too So lots of people talking about how and why they've created their own suicide safety plan and that kind of thing as well So really really good resource if you are someone who struggles with thoughts and feelings around suicide Or if you're supporting someone who does I guess the final thing to say is that there's no like age limit or like ethnicity limit or anything like that This is something that could be made to work for absolutely anyone And as with all things if you are working with younger children or people with special educational needs Then you might think carefully about how you adopt the language and that kind of thing In order to make your kind of age and stage appropriate But you know, use the language that works for you and create something that helps to keep them safe And yeah, hopefully helpful Okay, good luck I would love to hear your ideas about how you use this If you've got any other takes on it or things that you think should be added in or anything like that Leave them in a comment below And as always please subscribe And you'll be kept up to date with my new videos which come out on Tuesdays and Fridays Okay, see you next time Bye