This  one day course is  specific to specialist support staff working within the mental health and crisis intervention sectors where self harm and suicide may be present or where awareness of its potential is required.  The aim is to improve and develop for learners an effective knowledge base to understand self harm and suicide  and to provide core skills to enable, reduce, assess and manage potential and actual incidents.  This should enable workers to be confident and subsequently safe in their practice.

The course also explores ligatures,  and will enable staff to have the skills to assess their work environment for potential ligatures. Including carrying out an initial assessment, subsequent ongoing risk management, staff are then advised in the processes involved in safe and appropriate practices should a service user be at risk of ligating.

Specialist support staff working with service users who present within mental health and/ or crisis intervention sectors where self harm and suicide may be present or where awareness of its potential is required.

Learners will be able to understand :

• What is self-harm, who self-harms and how do people self-harm
• Why people self-harm and why people continue to self-harm
• Know when someone is self-harming
• Know what long-term risks are associated with self-harm
• Understand what immediate risks are associated with self-harming
• What are alternatives to self-harm and what support can be given
• Understand suicide – stats, types and how to develop a prevention suicide strategy
• Outline the benefits of an environmental assessment and risk reduction policy
• What are ligatures ?
• Perform an environmental suicide and ligature point risk assessment using a traffic lights system
• Support good practice in assessing and removing potential ligatures including cutters
• Demonstrate use of a ligature control and audit policy
•  Carry out exercises and a post learning audit