Suicide prevention support - adviser information
Raise the alarm - helping your clients and their people to deal with a threat of suicide
Facing a situation where a colleague, customer or member of the public is experiencing active suicidal thoughts, or threatening to take their own life, can be extremely challenging and distressing to deal with.
At Zurich, our trained nurses are experienced in managing this type of situation, but what about those without an extensive medical background? How would they cope if suddenly faced with a reported threat of suicide? Zurich Corporate Risk has created a 'Raise the alarm' suicide prevention support toolkit, which you may find helpful to discuss in any conversations with your clients about their wider mental health strategies. The toolkit contains a range of resources your clients and their staff can use to be better prepared for such situations.
Planning ahead – suicide prevention resources
The guides and resources below can help people to prepare for scenarios where they may be faced with a threat of suicide.
Engaging with emergency services
This guide contains information on how to manage a 999 call, including what information the emergency services might ask for, what information you can share, and further practical details about what might happen on an emergency call.
What information to collect
This guide explains what kind of information should be gathered when dealing with a suicidal person, as it may be needed to engage the emergency services, or to refer to in the future when considering ongoing support.
Breaching confidentiality
When faced with a threat of suicide, it may sometimes be necessary and appropriate to breach someone’s confidentiality in order to ensure they get immediate help. Our guide outlines a variety of scenarios where it may or may not be appropriate to breach confidentiality, and also explains how to discuss issues around confidentiality.
Mental health crisis helplines
This guide provides details of organisations that can support anyone dealing with a mental health crisis.
Employer support
Information, suggested practices, and prevention strategies to help deal with the threat of, reporting of, or aftermath of suicide.
Responder aftercare
Practical ways you can support someone who has dealt with a suicidal person.
How can Raise the alarm help your clients?
Suicide prevention support webinar
More information
Your feedback is important to us
If you have used the toolkit please leave your feedback as this will help us to further develop it and keep it up to date.
The information on the Zurich Raise the alarm webpage and the guides (“Resources”) have been compiled by Zurich Corporate Risk and incorporates information from recognised UK professional bodies including mental health charities, medical specialists, the UK Government and emergency services. The Resources are for general information purposes only and are not intended to amount to advice and cannot cover every situation. You should seek advice from a medical health professional where appropriate. Use of the Resources is at the user’s own risk.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Zurich is not responsible for the outcome of any use of these Resources. Where the Resources incorporate links to third party websites Zurich is not responsible for those websites and their content. The Resources are intended for internal use by Zurich corporate customers only and may not be used for commercial purposes. The Resources may be changed or removed without notice and are subject to the terms of use in the legal notice at www.zurich.co.uk.