Welcome to ZSA Resources
The Zero Suicide Alliance (ZSA) Resources website was developed to support individuals, communities and organisations to meet people's mental health needs before, during and after experiencing crisis - to ultimately help prevent suicide in the UK and beyond.
Key aims of the ZSA Resources are to:
- Inform and increase awareness of suicide and the factors that may contribute to someone dying by suicide
- Highlight examples of best and innovative practice - providing ideas for action
- Highlight a variety of tools / resources to support mental health and suicide prevention work.
The resources are primarily aimed at those who work in suicide prevention, health and social care professionals, and other local and national leaders, but we welcome everyone to explore them as can help people understand more about suicide, break down the stigma surrounding it and learn about the fantastic work happening to help prevent it.
If you are looking for resources to help you or someone you know with their mental health, visit our urgent help page for helplines and support services.
What resources are there?
Our suicide data map is an interactive map of England that was developed in partnership with the NHS Benchmarking Network.
The map enables you to gain a more in-depth picture of the challenges in your community, including over a 100 different health and social factors related to an increased risk of suicide, and the extensiveness of service provision and demand across the care pathway.
Our Facts for Action series provides contextual information to help users understand the data presenting within our Suicide Prevention Resource Map.
Facts for Action also also includes examples of good practice whereby readers can learn from the work of others and how to apply it to address specific challenges that they also face.
Our Resource Library offers a directory of different tools to help support your local community to tackle suicide, including:
- Training programmes
- School programmes
- Digital tools
- Workplace guides
- University guides
- Key suicide prevention publications (including national suicide prevention policies)
Visit our urgent help page if you are looking for mental health crisis helplines or wish to be signposted to mental health information websites.
Our case study library introduces users to a range of examples of best and innovative practice from across the UK and beyond to help support health and social care professionals care for those that struggle with their mental health and are at risk of suicide.
As part of our population approach to suicide prevention, we are also always on the look out for work that is being undertaken to help prevent people developing significant mental health and social related needs that may contribute to these individuals reaching crisis.
Contact us if you have a piece of work you would like to share.
Our brand new dashboards make data on suicide rates and contributing risk factors easy to understand. Take a closer look at each UK nation, regions in England and work sectors with employees at a higher risk of suicide.
How were these resources developed?
In order to scope the purpose, design and approach of the ZSA Resources, the ZSA and the Health Innovation Network (HIN) undertook extensive initial development work.
The HIN is the Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) for South London and is focused on connecting health and social care teams across sectors in order to increase the spread and adoption of innovation across large populations, both at scale and pace.
The initial scoping work included conducting a number of engagement sessions with a range stakeholders involved in mental health and suicide prevention work across the country. Stakeholders included clinicians and corporate professionals working within the NHS, Public Health England*, the education sector, emergency services, third sector organisations, the wider industry and local government.
The HIN also undertook a series of desktop evidence reviews researching the scope of national and international suicide prevention work. Knowledge gained from these reviews informed the planned development of the ZSA Resources.
Feedback from stakeholder engagement sessions and reviews produced a series of recommendations for the ZSA Resources. Recommendations were based on the following areas:
- Partnership opportunities
- Communication methods
- Validation and content
- Sustainability
*The Public Health England sector responsible for public health is now formally known as the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID).
The development of the Suicide Prevention Resource Map built upon an early mapping project with the Mental Health Foundation.
The Social Risk Factor Map (displayed on the right) mapped 9 risk factors of suicide across England, prioritising where action was required to help prevent incidences of suicide.
The Suicide Prevention Resource Map provides us with a more in-depth insight with over 100 indicators of suicide.
What can I do next?
ZSA Resources are designed to support wider suicide prevention work happening in your local community and on a national level, helping leaders to make meaningful change to prevent suicide.
We encourage you to:
- Seek out the UK's national suicide prevention strategy to gain an understanding of strategies to prevent suicide, including those for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Visit our Publications page for these reports.
- Seek out your local suicide prevention strategy which will be tailored to consider the needs, assets and opportunities in your community.
- Explore our resources. These will help you further understand suicide, share the innovative work of others, and give you ideas of what you can do to help.
- Share and talk about what you find - everyone can contribute to change.
- Share your feedback for the purpose of evaluating and improving the ZSA resources.
