Stephen Habgood

Stephen is a Director of MFC. He gives presentations for MFC around various aspects of suicide and facilitates/supports participants at our Families Webinars. For 9 years Stephen was Chairman of PAPYRUS Prevention of Young Suicide following the death by suicide of his only child Christopher in 2009. He stepped down from this role in 2019. He campaigned around a number of issues, including • the poor support available to students in schools, colleges and universities • removal of the online sites that encouraged suicide • the use of the criminal standard of proof by coroners in reaching a suicide conclusion • the responsible reporting of suicide by the media • the sensitive application of confidentiality by GPs, and • the involvement of families in the incident investigations following a suicide. PAPYRUS successfully campaigned to change the way coroners reached a suicide verdict, from the criminal standard of proof to the civil standard of ‘on the balance of probabilities’. They ran an effective helpline which supported those who were distressed, and they would ‘breach confidentiality’ to summon help to those who were actively taking their own lives. Before this, Stephen spent almost 30 years in the Prison Service as a prison governor working in many different prisons and has spent two periods in the Home Office as an advisor. For some years he was Head of Prisoner Escort and Custody Service, responsible for all prisoner movement in England and Wales, and responsible for the care of prisoners whilst at court. His final role with the Prison Service was to lead a project to close prisons that were no longer fit for purpose, and this led to the closure of seven prisons. He is engaged in several additional roles along with his work for MFC, including: As an Expert Adviser to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), he has been involved with NICE in the development of several guidelines: The Mental Health Care of those in the Criminal Justice System and Suicide Prevention in the Community and Custody Settings. For three years he was a lay member of the Medical Technologies Advisory Committee, which approves the introduction of new technologies to the health and care systems. He is currently working with them on a guideline on Urinary Tract Symptoms in men and others. A reviewer for the National Institute for Health Research, he reviews and provides comments on health research proposals. He is also a lay reviewer for their Public Grants for Applied Research committee. Some of the reviews are valued more than £10m. He is a former Advisor to the Board of the charity ‘Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide’. Also, he regularly delivers training input to Berkshire Health mental health staff, nurses and GPs on suicide prevention and regularly speaks to parents who have lost young people to suicide. He is also an ordained assistant Anglican Priest in the Diocese of Lichfield. He is passionate about improving mental health services to young people, increasing awareness of young suicide, reducing stigma, and reducing the number of young people who take their own life.