Zero Suicide Alliance (ZSA) has lifted another prestigious healthcare trophy for the promotion of their innovative and free online suicide prevention training to complete a 'Fantastic Five' awards in 2019.
The Alliance won the Excellence in Communication and Engagement award at the Forward Healthcare Awards last night (25 September 2019), beating strong competition from NHS Trusts to win the prize.
It follows further success for the ZSA, who have previously won the Public Sector Content Campaign of the Year Award for 2019 at the UK Content Awards, the Engage Award 2019 for best use of training, the Northern Digital Awards 2019 for best digital marketing campaign and the 2019 PR Moment Award for best not for profit campaign.
A ZSA spokesman said: "This training has been developed with clinical expertise and with the experience and learning of those who have lived through suicide and we're delighted it's now being recognised as the great training tool that it is.
"We're very proud of the training and committed to its promotion so that as many people as possible learn the skills to approach those in trouble and possibly help to safe a life."
Over 250,000 people have now accessed the training, which has been developed alongside leading training provider Relias UK, since it was first launched in November 2017. It take just 20 minutes to complete, can be accessed by anyone and on our site.
The ZSA's success also attracted Government backing last year, who have pledged to provide £2 million over the next two years to help their efforts to improve suicide prevention in the UK. The funding is designed to improve suicide awareness and training and the development of an innovative digital suicide prevention resources and exploration of cutting edge analytics to predict risk.
In the most recent Suicides in the UK report by the Office for National Statistics, 6,507 suicides were registered in the UK in 2018 with men in the 45-54 age group the most at risk for taking their own lives.