TRUSTEE ANNUAL REPORT 2023
CHARITY NAME SURVIVORS OF SUICIDE SUPPORT GROUP
OTHER NAMES BY WHICH EAST BELFAST SURVIVORS OF SUICDE/ SOS KNOW BY REGISTERED CHARITY NIC103483 NUMBER PRINCIPLE ADDRESS CONNSWATER COMMUNITY CENTRE BALLYMACARRETT WALKWAY CONNSWATER STREET BELFAST BT4 1SX RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GENERAL CONTROL MANAGEMENT OF THE CHARITY. NAMES OF TRUSTEES JACKIE DRUMMOND CHAIRPERSON JASON MCCAMLEY VICECHAIR GARETH MCCAUSLAND TREASURER DIANE KEENAN ELAINE SMYTH HELEN SMYTH NAMES OF STAFF CLAIRE CURRAN HEAD OF SERVICES IRENE BLANCHARD ADMIN AND FINANCE TYPE 0F GOVERNING CONSTITUTION
AMENDED ON THE 7[TH] DAY OF FEBRUARY 2019
AMENDED ON THE 16[TH] DAY OF NOVEMBER 2023
HOW THE CHERITY IS CHARITABLE UNINCORPORATED ASSOCIATION CONSTITUTED
CHARITY TRUSTEE INFORMAL INTERVIEW PROCESS AFTER SELECTION METHOD ADVERTISING, CAN BE APPOINTED BY OTHER TRUSTEES, SELECTED FROM MMEMBERSHIP
SUMMARY OF OBJECTS A. THE ORGANISATION IS ESTABLISHED TO HELP ALLEVIATE
OF THE CHARITY SET OUT DISTRESS AND OFFER ASSISTANCE TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE
IN GOVERNING DOCUMENT SUFFERED LOSS THROUGH SUICIDE OR ANGUISH THROUGH SELF-HARM BY LOVED ONES, IN PARTICULAR BY THE
DEVELOPMENT OF SUPPORT SYSTEMS WITHIN THE COMMUNITY;
B. ADVANCE THE EDUCATION OF THE PUBLIC INTO, AND
RAISE AWARENESS OF, THE CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF SUICIDE
AND SELF-HARM AND INTO MATTERS RELATING TO THE NATURE OF GRIEVING, BEREAVEMENT AND THE TREATMENT AND
REHABILITATION OF INDIVIDUALS THAT SELF-HARM. C. TO OFFER SUPPORT FOR FAMILY AND FRIENDS
BEREAVED AND/OR AFFECTED BY SUICIDE.
D. TO CONNECT FAMILIES AND FRIENDS BEREAVED THROUGH SUICIDE IN SOUTH EAST BELFAST/CASTLEREAGH AND THE SOUTH EASTERN TRUST AREA AND
GIVE RELEVANT ADVICE ON HELP AND SUPPORT AVAILABLE.
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E. TO CREATE A GROUP FOR FAMILIES TO EXPRESS THEIR NEEDS AND CONCERNS AND FACILITATE ACTION TO ADDRESS THEM.
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F. TO PROVIDE AN ACCESSIBLE SERVICE WHICH SUPPORTS
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THOSE WHO ARE IN CRISIS AS A RESULT OF ACTUAL OR ATTEMPTED SUICIDE AND SELF HARM.
SUMMARY OF THE MAIN PROVIDING 1-1 SUPPORT, LISTENING EAR ACTIVITIES UNDERTAKEN BEFRIENDING, LIFE COACHING, TRAINING FOR THE PUBLIC BENEFIT IN COUNSELLING, COMPLIMENTARY RELATION OF THE OBJECTS THERAPIES, INFORMATION, ADVICE
ADVOCACY, AWARENESS SESSIONS & EVENTS AND FAMILY SUPPORT GROUP SUPPORTING FAMILIES BEREAVED BY SUICIDE AND THOSE AFFECTED BY SUICIDE
ADDITIONAL MATTERS ALL WORK CARRIED OUT BY FULLY ON ACTIVITIES TRAINED VOLUNTEERS – TRAINING PROVIDED BY THE CHARITY. 5000 HOURS COMPLETED BY VOLUNTEERS
SUMMARY OF THE MAIN IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS WE HAVE SUPPORTED 164 ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE PEOPLE, SOME OF THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN
CHARITY IN THE LAST YEAR BEREAVED BY SUICIDE AND THOSE WHO HAVE
SUICIDAL IDEATION/ATTEMPTED SUICIDE. We have continued to support families bereaved by suicide through our 1-1 support,
our complimentary therapies and our family support group. We have also continued supporting individuals. We have continued working in partnership with Belfast HSCT and South Eastern HSCT. We have also been working with Belfast city council
on the peace plus mental health working group. We attended the Journey to recovery part 2 workshop and the self care day for Belfast and South eastern trusts. We finished up our year
being one of the four charities supported by the Deputy Lord Mayor by having supper in the city hall.
We completed training in ASD, Welfare rights, developing corporate partnerships, Social values, making self evaluation work, charity finance, domestic violence/coercive control, hr training and bereavement
support with FOSL based in the South of Ireland. We evaluated our work from the previous year and planned for the upcoming year which gave us the information needed to write our strategic plan and action plan for the next 3 years. We met 4 times to work on our strategic plan and our action plan with our volunteers
and committee members taking part. We met with our local MLAs and councillors to discuss our ongoing work and gave them resources for those
who approach them for support. We met with The Rotary Club for Belfast and received their John Savage award and gave them information around suicide prevention.
We also attended 4 awareness events in the local community, 2 health events, a coffee morning and a family fun day giving out information on suicide prevention.
We attended the schools events in Saintfield and Belfast making some great connections and passing on information around suicide prevention and emotional resilience. We also attended an event for International women’s day. We attended 2 events around being trauma informed and using trauma informed practice with Ascert and Rock Pool. We attended the Belfast COI compassion fatigue workshop
which was really beneficial.
We completed training on making an impact and program planning and our Head of Services has been taking part in Neuro diversity training. While our vice chair is completing benefits advice training and fitness coaching to help with mental health and we have been rolling this training out to clients who could find it helpful.
We have a life-sized bear mascot called Speak out
Samuel who attends all of our events. We are working on a community garden beside our centre with Chatty benches, positive quotes and
helpline numbers along side sensory planters and a ribbon path. Which is almost complete bar the planting. We are working with East Belfast Community development agency to deliver suicide prevention and mental health training to local community groups one of whom
are Greenway Women’s centre.
We are also drawing up an A4 leaflet with the training available and a little bit of information on it and
who it is aimed at specifically for East Belfast community groups. And we are putting together a self-care session for local community groups with tasters and ideas. We are part of the ongoing Community Connectors group for East Belfast bringing community organisations together for training and information on suicide prevention and community response. We partnered with Families Voices forum to launch
the Manifesto at Belfast City Hall and we also did a presentation to Social work students at Queens University on Suicide prevention and postvention. We took part in 3 of the postvention consultation workshops
to help shape the future of postvention in Northern Ireland.
We attended the launch of the Samaritans impact report and sat on the panel to answer questions on the progress in mental health and suicide and also what the challenges are moving forward and also attended the launch of the
self harm report online. We attended the Belfast COI and the SE COI, and took part in the sub group meetings of training and
education for the Belfast COI. We attended the BPLIG and SE PLIG meetings. Our Head of Services became co chair of the BPLIG
group and continues to be co chair of the SE COI. We have also attended numeroius meetings of the Regional Mental health crisis service workstream 1 and
task and finish groups.. Our management committee met 13 times. Our events committee met 14 times and our support group met each month with activities such as a craft making positive
message boards, line dancing session, an online murder mystery, crazy golf and a meal, a quiz night with alcohol free drinks and snack food, 3 craft nights, a games night, a self care night, an online escape room and a Christmas party with games and music. We had refreshments at
all of these nights. We also took our families, staff and volunteers out for Christmas dinner. We have completed an in depth evaluation of our service with Jane Turnball, visited the NI Youth Forum
and started our new community support worker. We attended the APG on suicide prevention. We met up with the EA youth workers for East and West Belfast to plan a piece of work with young people,
more to follow soon.
We attended a bowling club awareness raiser and fundraiser , a Football event and a social event all to raise awareness and gave out lots of SP/MH/EW information including the BPLIG information leaflet. We also attended the Forward south partnership event Open Botanic and engaged with BAME communities and gave out lots of information. We supported a young man who had lost 3 friends to suicide, to run 100 miles over 30 hours to raise awareness. We drove behind him carrying supplies to help him
complete his mammoth task. We completed Mental health first aid, Cruse compassionate communities training,impact practice and an online outcomes approach training. For World suicide prevention day we held our Walk at Dawn leaving Holywood arches and walking to Belfast city hall with
the Deputy Lord mayor joining us. We had a short program at city hall to raise awareness. Then on the 10[th] Sept we hald our community event, it’s a knockout, with inflatables, food, information stands and bags, finishing the event by lighting candles to remember those lost to suicide. We had a very busy day with approx. 250 in attendance. We also had our Speak out Samuel mascot bear that everyone had to get a photo with. We decided to get little Speak Out Samuel’s to give out to people and we have asked for them to be carried and taken on holiday and for pictures to be sent back to us for social media. The idea is to get
conversations going on suicide prevention and mental health, its going really well and everyone wants a baby Speak out Samuel.
We also attended a networking event at Stormont on Suicide prevention, Mental health and ASD which was very informative, hosted by Patrick Brown
MLA, Cathy Mason MLA, and Suicide down to zero. We also attended the Lighthouse conference with lots of learning, and the Suicide bereavement UK conference which again had lots of useful and informative information and
new links made.
We attended the Samaritans conference, they celebrated being 70 years old this year with the North Down branch marking 50 years. We provided two breakout
sessions for them.
We took our volunteers and families to see a play at the Strand Arts centre. We also delivered 3 Safetalk training sessions to local communities. We also attended attended a discussion with Nicva and the Dept of Health re Core grants funding and completed an evaluation with CFNI. We attended 8 families
voices forum meetings and the Regional SDI/CRP meeting. We where also at the online presentation of the National Confidential enquiry, the review of Take 5 at Ulster university, A sustaining tenancies learning event, and the review of the East Belfast CRP. We held a Wax on Wax off e vent in a local bar to reach males in the area and attended the Families First awards for secondary education at the TiTanic. We where at the Mens health event at Avoniel and looked after the East Belfast leg of the Baton of hope event. We also delivered a self care workshop to the Wellbeing café in east Belfast. We attended 3 other health events in East Belfast and at each event we gave out the BPLIG leaflet with
all of the support organisations on them. We also attended the Kings Coronation in May. We have been supporting the Families voices form Chairperson and communications officer as the Co Ordinator left due to family caring responsibilities. This has meant we have had a lot more meetings to plan and
get everyone updated on the work that has been carried out and what needs actioned. We have had 12 FVF planning meetings and we had 2 events for forum members and we welcomed the new forum co Ordinator. One of the events was in relation to online harms and the new online safety bill which was explained to all as well as a presentation from Samaritans. We are now a part of the take 5 working group and excited on how we can roll the programme out
and get people engaged. Unfortunately we had a CRP meeting in East Belfast as a number of males had taken their own lives over a short period in one particular postcode so we shared information both o nline and in person to support local communities. We also attended a community connectors meeting in East Belfast and shared information there also. The idea behind the community connectors is to inform them of what work is taking place and what supports are in place to help people. We attended the Mental health champions conference for world mental health day and also the Belfast Trust event in the city centre. We attended the Belfast city council peace plus meeting at Girdwood to hear the finalised plans for the application and work going forward. We met with several Belfast City councillors to talk about suicide prevention in Belfast and have strengthened our links with several of the local councillors. We attended the Community foundation event in
Cookstown and heard about great work happening around the country. We did a presentation to the Proteus group at Malone golf club. We completed Cruses grief first aid training, and traumatic bereavement training with Anam Cara and our new support worker has been busy completing drugs and alcohol training. We also had 2 of our staff complete Challenging behaviours ocn level 2. We held our Teddy bears picnic for World mental health day where we had 30 children and their parents and others from the local community. We had a picnic made
up of different foods that our famous bears like winnie the pooh and Paddington like to eat. We had little bags for children and information bags for adults with mental health and suicide prevention information and a little bear for them. We had a treasure hunt to find our little speak out Samuel bears, we made teddy bears, we had story time, we had colour the teddy bear pictures and positive quotes up around the centre. It was a really good event for all and a positive way to get suicide prevention information
out there. And we can’t forget Speak Out Samuel our life sized
mascot who made a special appearance. We decided to change up our annual celebration of life event. So instead of having the event at our usual venue we did a couple
of events at our centre. We had the launch of our chatty benches in our community garden beside our centre, we had music & songs, and we made a special spread of food with things like Grinch kebabs and candy cane hearts. We made little bags of hope which where given out to each person who attended. We had our Christmas tree and those who attended where able to put a bauble on the tree with a picture of their loved one of another image to represent
them. We incorporated Take 5 activities with people bingo to connect, positive quotes in our garden for people to take notice, planting of snowdrop and white daffodil bulbs to take home as keep learning, a walk around the garden and the centre to keep active and we gave angel wing keyrings to all who attended. It was a lovely event
which was very moving. We also held a Christmas event with a living Christmas tree that those who attended could write messages on for their loved ones no longer with us. We had music and we had Santa in his grotto with presents for all of the children who came along. We had games, letter writing to santa and a post box for all the letters. We had elves in costume and Mickey and Minnie and not forgetting the Grinch who was a little bit naughty.
We had mince pies and cookies with hot chocolate and non alcoholic mulled wine and mulled cider.
We wanted to do this event as we recognise so many families are struggling with cost of living and worried about Christmas so this event was free to attend and see Santa and take pictures without the cost and not let the kids down either. It was a really meaningful event and definitely something
we will continue with. Again information bags for adults with the MH services leaflet where given out to all adults.
POLICY ON RESERVES NO POLICY ON RESERVES
SIGNATURES JACKIE DRUMMOND CHAIRPERSON 26/01/2024
Survivors of Suicide Michelle Kelly Treasurer 2610112024