Staff wellbeing is the Staff Mental Health and Wellbeing’s priority across the Partnership, and people can and should expect support for their mental health and wellbeing from their line manager and their organisation.
An anonymous staff member at the Partnership has bravely opened up to share their mental health journey in which they credit our West Yorkshire Suicide Prevention website, Staff Mental Health and Wellbeing Hub and attending staff suicide prevention training sessions as having saved their life.
The staff member wrote a blog entitled: “Staff Suicide Prevention Training Saved Me,” and went on to write: “I do not type that statement lightly. After possibly the bleakest period of my life so far (and believe me I have had terribly dark periods prior to this one), I genuinely attribute my survival to the training my team and I undertook and the resources available to be from the Partnership.”
The blog details how the West Yorkshire Suicide Prevention website allowed them to see “how and where” to seek help; how they referred themselves for counselling through the Staff Mental Health hub to reach an appropriate support service and wrote that they were thankful for the staff suicide prevention training provided by the Partnership, which meant colleagues knew how to support them. “They persevered and truly cared,” the author said.
The blog ends with the staff member writing “I’m feeling like my old self again” and this is “proof that these feelings DO pass”.
They wrote: “For a few fleeting days, I forgot about all the joy I have in my life and just how devastating it would be for the people that care about me and love me, if I was no longer around.
“I am one less statistic for West Yorkshire because of the training, the website and the mental health hub, it’s that simple.”
You can read the full blog post.
