Collective responsibility, Collective action to prevent student suicide

We are pleased to share the publication of new guidance for the Higher Education (HE) sector to reduce risk and restrict access to means of student suicide. This very practical guidance, based on current evidence from research, serious incident reviews and inquest data, is designed to help institutions think through key issues when addressing risk factors and reducing/restricting access to potential means and methods of suicide in a higher education context. The development of this guidance has been supported by a large stakeholder reference group with multiple author contributors from the HE sector including researchers and practitioners, bereaved family members and student peers as well as many relevant national stakeholder groups.

The guidance has been funded by Unite Students with Symplicity and was officially launched at University of Manchester on October 11th 2024. The University of Edinburgh are honoured to host the Scottish launch of this guidance on Wednesday 29th January 2025. The Scottish Government will be represented at the event and there will be an opportunity to hear case studies from Scottish universities.

The guidance is available as an electronic download from the AMOSSHE website using the following link:

https://www.amosshe.org.uk/resource/collective-responsibility-collective-action-to-prevent-student-suicide-1.html [amosshe.org.uk]

This guidance is intended to sit within the existing portfolio of HE guidance around suicide prevention and postvention. In 2018, Universities UK (UUK) and PAPYRUS jointly published Suicide-safer universities [universitiesuk.ac.uk] guidance, which covered prevention of suicide and compassionate responses to suicide in universities. In December 2022, Universities UK, PAPYRUS and Samaritans jointly published sector-led guidance on ‘How to respond to a student suicide [universitiesuk.ac.uk]’.

During the lunch break, there will be an opportunity to attend a wellbeing walk, which will be led by our University Historian. They will be able to give you a tour of some our central campus locations and a brief history on them. If you are interested in joining this, please ensure you sign up for this at the registration desk on your arrival.
Further details of the programme of the day will be sent in due course.

Host or Publisher Melissa Hameed