REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE GUIDELINES FOR MANAGING SUICIDE PREVENTION
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE GUIDELINES FOR MANAGING SUICIDE PREVENTION IN IRISH SCHOOLS
Is breá liom bheith anseo libh inniu chun na Treóirlintí tabhachtach seo a sheoladh.
It is a particular pleasure to have been asked by Dr. Connolly to launch the Best Practice Guidelines for Managing Suicide Prevention in Irish Schools. Two years ago, I had the opportunity to attend your Conference on Suicide Prevention in Schools. It marked the start of a crucial process of consultation and study from which has emerged the booklet we place a lot of hope in today.
For this is a subject that needs hope and needs coherent, credible, effective help. It is an exceptionally difficult subject to deal with and our society owes a debt of gratitude to the Irish Association of Suicidology and the National Suicide Review Group whose commitment will, please God, help us to chart a future where fewer lives will be wasted through suicide and fewer families will know the awesome shadow of grief it casts.
The challenge of suicide prevention is staring us in the face as a society, demanding that we face into it and find answers where we only have questions. The increasing rates of suicide among young people in Ireland and in other countries in recent years have been well documented and they are a source of deep unease generally among the population to say nothing of the devastation they wreak on those who are bereaved and left to ponder an impossibly huge Why?
Part of the tragedy of suicide is that it is particularly difficult to predict. For many years the subject of suicide was taboo and, as a consequence, our efforts at understanding it and thus preventing it, were compromised. Now, thanks to the efforts of organisations like the Irish Association of Suicidology, it is being discussed openly and initiatives are being undertaken to try to prevent this dreadful aspect of present day life.
Our knowledge of the causes of suicide is far from complete. We know that there is a wide spectrum of reasons why people decide to take their own lives. But, whatever the motivating factor or factors, there is clearly a need to ensure that as parents, as friends, and as educators and professionals we collaborate to provide the necessary supports to those at risk. It is vital that there is a continuous process of consultation to bring together the various sources of knowledge and expertise that exist on the subject of suicide and suicide prevention. It is not enough any longer for each of us to keep on working on our own separate parallel tracks because along those tracks important information or opportunities get lost or go unremarked. Allow those tracks to cross each other and we have a chance to share vital insight, wisdom and information, to harness resources and to work much more efficiently than ever before in suicide prevention.
These published Guidelines have come about because people were willing to cross those tracks, to listen to each other and to share with each other. At the heart of the consultative process was an acknowledgement that no one organisation or entity holds all the answers, but rather that bits of the answer are distributed widely, in people and places we may not have previously even thought of as significant and there was a need to gather those bits together, to piece them together like a jigsaw puzzle. At the end of this part of the process we are a bit wiser than we were at the start and the journey towards even deeper understanding has been taken a bit further.
In Ireland, we can take some consolation in the evidence that being in education is a protective factor against suicide. Once off, single lectures or seminars on suicide prevention have been shown to be of little benefit and may at times, be counter-productive. On the other hand, initiatives such as the Health Promoting School and Social and Personal Health Education which are currently under way in Irish schools, are fine examples of whole-school programmes in social and personal development that are designed to make the school experience of pupils and teachers supportive and rewarding.
These programmes address such important issues as communication skills, help-seeking skills, emotional health, substance abuse – as well as many other themes concerned with mental health promotion. Similarly, as these Suicide Prevention Guidelines point out, educational initiatives are most effective where they operate at a unified, whole-school level, where they are based on agreed school policies and plans and where they have the commitment of everyone in the school. In the school, as in the community, suicide prevention is more likely to be effective when it is very much a shared endeavour.
We should, of course, remember that guidelines are just that – only guidelines. They cannot in themselves achieve the desired outcome. The immediate challenge must be to see that schools are given every support and encouragement to study the guidelines and to draw from them policies and plans appropriate to their particular circumstances. In this regard, I am delighted to see that the Irish Association of Suicidology hopes to follow up the publication of these Guidelines with a series of workshops to help with the implementation of strategies for suicide prevention in schools.
These Guidelines are not meant to place responsibility for suicide prevention onto teachers, students or other school personnel. They are about increasing awareness and knowledge of some of the warning signs of suicidal behaviour that may come to light in school and ensuring that information is put to the best use, in the best way. They are designed to help the teacher by dispelling many of the myths and fictions surrounding suicide - heightening teachers’ awareness of pupils who are at risk and of conditions that can give rise to an increase in that risk. They outline actions to be taken when concerns are raised, giving teachers the comfort of a guiding handrail. The Guidelines can also assist schools to develop policies and plans for suicide prevention by giving impartial advice on the advantages and disadvantages of the various programmes of social, personal and health education that are available to schools. And should such a tragedy strike at a school, the guidelines provide a practical guide in developing Crisis Action Plans to assist in the event of a suicide or to prevent another tragedy occurring.
These guidelines represent a significant step forward in our society’s battle against the needless waste of young lives and I am sure that they will be warmly welcomed not alone in our schools but throughout our society. For many of us it is heartening and reassuring that this vexed subject is emerging on the national agenda not simply as a despairing “why” but as a determined pursuit of solutions.
Deireann an sean fhocal, ‘Is ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine’. May it be the key to successful suicide prevention.
I commend and thank the Irish Association for Suicidology and the National Suicide Review Group and all the individuals and organisations that contributed to the production of the guidelines. May they be successful and through them may we collectively and individually encourage a healthy climate of resilient mental well-being, in which the courage to face life, no matter what, is easier to find and hold on to.
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.