Preventing suicide in the fire and rescue service

In celebration of 80 years of The Fire Fighters Charity, the organisation shares its perspectives on preventing suicide and prioritising mental health and wellbeing in the fire service industry.

In the last three years alone, The Fire Fighters Charity has been notified of 20 serving fire and rescue service personnel who have died by suicide. Their average age was just 47. Nothing can prepare anyone for that loss, but we want to honour their memories by preventing more of our fire family from experiencing the same devastating path, through a new framework we will be launching this summer.

We now support the health and wellbeing needs of over 10,000 members of the fire services community every year, empowering them to live happier and healthier lives. In the previous issue of Emergency Services Times, we revealed how over the last two years, stress, anxiety and depression have been the most common reasons why people have reached out to us for mental health support. We’ve seen a 27 per cent increase in demand for mental health support in the last year alone.

New tools aimed at preventing suicide

Within this, we are seeing an increase in the number of people affected by suicide, including people thinking about suicide, people who have experienced a suicide attempt, and people bereaved by suicide. In our 80th anniversary year, we are proud to be launching a range of tools and resources aimed at preventing suicide in the fire services community and supporting those impacted by it. 

There is more we need to do to create further awareness around suicide by opening conversations, reducing stigma and equipping people with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to talk about suicide, ensuring nobody feels alone and support is there for them when they need it.

Knowing that suicide is causing devastating loss within the fire and rescue community, we’ve worked in collaboration with an expert research team at Nottingham Trent University to develop a host of online resources to support all those at risk of suicide, or those impacted by suicide.

Wellbeing support

As part of the launch of our suicide prevention and postvention framework, Professor Rowena Hill, our National Honorary Research Lead, discusses three key pieces of evidence-based work which focus on wellbeing within the fire and rescue service.

“We will be launching our suicide prevention and postvention framework on our website this summer and it will provide a range of tools and resources designed to help our fire and rescue community raise awareness, reduce stigma and be able to direct people to the right support and save lives.

Sharon Bailey. Director of Beneficiary Services, The Fire Fighters Charity.

“Over the coming months, supported by the National Fire Chiefs Council, the Blue Light Card Foundation and our friends at The Ambulance Staff Charity, we will continue to build on this work.

“On behalf of The Fire Fighters Charity, I would like to pay tribute to those members of our emergency services community who have died by suicide, our thoughts remain with your families, friends, and colleagues. Working together we will create change and prevent further loss.”

Gordon and John’s story

In developing this framework, we have worked closely with members of our fire services community, including those who have had lived experience of suicide. They include two Scottish firefighters, Gordon and John, who shared their memories of losing their colleague, Colin, to suicide.

They now want to use their experiences to help others and encourage more people to reach out for support.  They also hope to, in their words, ensure ‘you’re looking after yourself and your friends and colleagues – being proactive and doing something about it.’ John says,

“Colin masked it very, very well. And that seems to be common with people that have got mental health issues. You would never know anything at all, and we were the ones that were going to him and speaking to him.”

Gordon says of his friend, “He was always out there to help other people, but I just think he didn’t help himself really.”

We hope, by working together with our fire family, we can ensure every member of the UK’s fire and rescue service, as well as their families, know where to find that vital help when they need it.

John shared his thoughts on his involvement with the new framework. “Taking part in that was a massive realisation for me. The way it’s structured is amazing, I think it’s a great piece of work and I think it’ll help a lot of people.”

This is part of our series commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Fire Fighters Charity. To learn more, see ‘Fire Fighters Charity at 80′.

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