suicide Archives • Making Families Count

Everyone’s business

27 November 2023 by Trevor Stevens

Back in the summer, I tuned in to Newsnight for an item about an NHS Trust where 8,000 people in touch with mental health services died in three years. My daughter was one of the 8,000. Whilst watching the programme, I wondered what I would have thought if I hadn’t been personally involved in these tragedies. I’d have been shocked, definitely, but not necessarily touched. They would have been other people’s stories. “Suicide is everyone’s business” is not my phrase, but one used by Stephen Habgood, Director of MFC, in a discussion following a webinar we co-presented. To which most …

Suicide without ideation

3 August 202320 April 2022 by Dorit Braun

To prevent such deaths requires health professionals to take a broader view of risk than ideation. This is also true for tragic homicides by people with acute mental illness. Health professionals need to listen attentively to the concerns of family members, and/or friends.

Suicide as a result of domestic abuse

3 August 202316 March 2022 by Frank Mullane

Between four and ten women take their own lives each week in the UK because of domestic abuse. For families this is a dark, lonely and challenging place.

What can one person do to achieve change?

3 August 202316 October 2021 by Dorit Braun

Many years ago, as a young woman, I also wanted to change the world. I wanted the inequalities within and between countries to be reduced.

Working to improve mental health services

3 August 20232 June 2021 by Dorit Braun

The lead psychiatrist for the mental health trust phoned me. She was thoughtful, reflective and kind. I felt that she and her team were trying to reflect and learn.

Inquest – a family’s perspective

3 August 20239 December 2020 by Dorit Braun

My much loved daughter in law Mariana Pinto died, aged 32, on 16 October 2016. The Coroner, issued a narrative verdict at the end of the inquest, on 13 March 2017: “Mariana Pinto died on Sunday, 16 October 2016, when she stepped over the balcony of her home, fell from the third floor, and after some minutes rolled off the glass roof on which she had landed to the ground below. Her actions were deliberate, but she did not have the understanding necessary to categorise these as suicide. She was in a confused state with features of psychosis. This was …