Dear Life: Suicide Prevention Strategy for Coventry and Warwickshire 2022 – 2030

People in Coventry and Warwickshire were invited to have a say on the region's approach to prevent suicide. 

Warwickshire County Council and Coventry City Council are working together with other local organisations and services to create a new joint approach to providing information, services and support across the area to help prevent suicide. 

A new strategy will outline how local organisations and services will work together to achieve the vision that no one in Coventry and Warwickshire ever feels that suicide is their only option. 

Coventry and Warwickshire Suicide Prevention Partnership will use this strategy to make positive change and asked for opinions to ensure the approach will have a positive impact. 

The following different engagement opportunities were made available as part of the development of the Coventry and Warwickshire Suicide Prevention Strategy:

Local strategic partnerships: a number of local partnership boards were engaged with developing the vision and approach for the Suicide Prevention strategy.

Stakeholder workshops: Through a series of workshops, local organisations and services told us that our approach to suicide prevention across Coventry and Warwickshire needs to:  

• have clear and consistent messaging  
• raise awareness of suicide prevention within communities and organisations 
• ensure that people know where to go for the right support at the right time 
• understand and reflect the reasons that may lead to suicide or suicidal thought 
• be relevant to all ages and different communities and population groups 
• target people and groups at higher risk of suicide 
• involve people with lived experience  
• provide support to the people who are working with or caring for people who self harm or are at risk of suicide 
• use the knowledge and experience of existing networks and groups to share best practice  
• enable the sharing of information to support better joint working and coordination of service delivery 
• focus on prevention and early intervention to support the emotional wellbeing of people   

Public engagement survey: This engagement process concluded that the strategic vision and priorities were largely consistent with what respondents felt was needed. There was an emphasis on societal risk factors and prevention at the earliest opportunity. Specific themes were identified in relation to:  

• The need for early intervention and support before crisis is reached 
• Ensuring that individual needs are at the centre of any intervention, particularly at crisis point 
• Tackling risk factors that might be a causal factor for suicide  
• Taking a holistic approach that takes account of the individual and complex nature of suicidal crisis and ideation
• Coproduction and ensuring that lived experience forms the basis of suicide prevention activity  
• Funding, service capacity and joined up working locally 
• Increasing awareness of suicide so that people are better to equipped to identify and support individuals in suicidal crisis 
• Improving the general wellbeing and resilience of individuals and communities  

Overall, our engagement activities concluded that there was overall agreement with the ambitions and priorities of the new suicide prevention strategy.

A significant amount of rich information was gathered from both organisations and individuals through this process. This will be used to inform the suicide prevention delivery planning process.

Where appropriate, the feedback from the public engagement survey will be reflected in the suicide prevention work programme, with specific actions developed in response to this.

The new Coventry and Warwickshire Suicide Prevention Strategy 2023-2030 was endorsed by both the Coventry and Warwickshire Health and Wellbeing Boards in January 2023. Please click on the links below for more information.

Warwickshire Health and Wellbeing Board: 11 January 2023. (Agenda item 6)

Coventry Health and Wellbeing Board: 23 January 2023. (Agenda item 8)

A further paper was submitted to Warwickshire County Council’s Cabinet in April 2023 to confirm the Council’s approval of the Strategy.

The published version of the Strategy is currently being finalised and will be available on the WCC website once published.