Young People 16-25

Understanding Peer Support in Youth Suicide 

Peer support • Suicide • Wellbeing • Young people

What’s the project?

Peer support is when you receive support from someone who also has/has had their own experience of mental health difficulties; they can be a friend, family member, or work specifically in the role as a peer support worker (e.g., in the NHS or a charity). This project aims to understand the role of peer support in youth suicide prevention and whether it is an avenue of providing social support. To help the research team answer this question, they would like to hear the views of young people with lived or living experience of self-harm and/or suicidal thoughts and behaviour.

The research team based at the University of Birmingham want to develop a model that can help to better understand the role of peer support, alongside other interventions, in preventing suicide in young people. You do not need to have given or received peer support to participate.

Through a series of online or in-person workshops, this project aims co-produce a model with young people for young people that describes the role of peer support in youth suicide prevention. Young people can take part in just one or any number of workshops.

The research team hopes that this model can help us understand how peer support initiatives can be a valuable addition to other forms of social support for young people with lived or living experience of self-harm and/or suicidal thoughts and behaviour.

The team will host up to eight workshops, with the next two workshops running online from 6pm to 8pm on Thursday 13th February 2025 and Thursday 20th February 2025. There will also be future workshops online, so please feel free to register your interest for any number of upcoming workshops.

Find out more

The research team aim to recruit approximately 8-15 young people to each workshop. The workshops will take place online and will be facilitated by the research team. Young people can take part in just one or any number of workshops.

Before the first workshop, the team will ask young people to complete a consent form online and a short questionnaire (age, gender, ethnicity, occupational status). They will also invite young people to a telephone briefing session with the researcher to co-complete a safety plan and discuss any concerns/potential triggers in relation to the workshop topic.

During the workshops, the research team will work together with young people to understand and develop a mind-map/model which describes the potential role of peer support; whether or not it is a feasible and valuable form of social support; when it could be useful and in what context; and consider potential challenges of providing peer support across different settings for and by young people at-risk of suicide. The team will not ask young people to share their own, direct experience of suicide at any time.

Aged 16-25,

  • Living in England,
  • Lived or living experience of self-harm/suicidal thoughts and behaviours, and
  • Able to attend a 2-hour online workshop

Please note that young people do not need to have given or received peer support to be involved, as the research team are interested in how peer support could have been helpful or unhelpful.

Young people will be paid £20 per hour.

Every young person will receive a short telephone call prior to any workshops to discuss any potential triggers/concerns and complete a safety plan with the researcher. During the workshop, young people will be able to take as many breaks as needed, stop participating at any time, and there will be a debriefing session with the researcher available at the end of the workshops. Please contact the research team at any time with any queries and they will do their best to respond as soon as possible.

If you are interested in this opportunity and meet the eligibility criteria, please email Maria Michail on [email protected] with brief answers to the following questions:

  1. What is your name?
  2. Which of the two upcoming, online workshops (13th or 20th February 2025) would you like to attend, and/or register interest for any future workshops?
  3. Sometimes people feel they need a little extra support or someone to chat to when talking about mental health. In this study, once you have completed our online consent form, we will arrange a brief, individual telephone call to discuss the study and how we can best support you or make your involvement in the workshops better. Please share your general availability for this telephone call.

If you need any help completing your expression of interest, you can get in touch with Hajirah at [email protected].

For any of the upcoming, in-person workshops, please contact us by 12pm on the 6th of February 2025. (Please note that the team will need everyone to complete the consent form and telephone briefing before attending the workshops.)

If you are interested in any future workshop, which you can register your interest by emailing the research team point of contact at any time. The team will invite you to each workshop when it is set up and ready to go. You can remove your interest at any time by contacting us.

Please note that the McPin Foundation regularly promotes opportunities on behalf of other institutions; we are not responsible for the continuation or contents of further correspondence with any project partners where we are not listed as the project main point of contact.

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