Suicide prevention charity founder's election week plea
Matthew Smith, co-founder of suicide prevention and mental health charity If U Care Share, talks ahead of the election about the importance of suicide prevention, and how it should be a priority for whichever party is in government.
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00:00Hi, I'm Mark Crothers. I'm here with If You Care, Share Foundation co-founder Matthew Smith.
00:05Matthew, looking at If You Care, Share, can you give us an idea of the services
00:09you provide in the North East and around the country?
00:11Yeah, so If You Care, Share has been around for 13 years now, registered in 2011,
00:20with the three aims of preventing suicide, training people on how to intervene with
00:24somebody who might be suicidal, while also supporting those that have been affected by
00:29suicide. We offer support to people who have been affected across the North East,
00:35and we also deliver various different parts of training, some of which is elsewhere in the
00:41country, working in partnership with the likes of the Premier League and the Football League.
00:45Matthew, obviously we've got an election coming up on Thursday. You've spoken quite a lot about
00:49the fact that mental health services and suicide prevention needs to be front, left and centre
00:54of conversations, but hasn't been. Do you feel, once a new government is in place,
00:58those talks need to take place quickly?
01:00Yeah, I feel like I talk about it too much, to be honest, because it's frustrating. It's
01:06frustrating knowing how many people are being impacted by this subject matter, and you do
01:13sometimes scratch your head of why are we not seeing real recognised local funding for suicide
01:21prevention. I think, without going into any political standpoints, my big hope is wherever
01:30our future is going that there is a real buy-in to actually what is a huge, huge issue in so many
01:39communities across the country. I'm concerned in terms of the lack of acknowledgement it's had
01:46from manifestos and from all of the parties, and I really hope that there can be an intention from
01:54whoever is in power that actually we buy into the importance of suicide. But I think where I
02:01also feel really passionate is also buying the value of the voluntary sector in this, because
02:09we have a health service that are at the brim and are really struggling and experience a huge
02:17demand in service, and organisations like ourselves are quite often there to pick up the pieces
02:25without much recognition in terms of a financial recognition, and that comes from the top
02:31and filters down. So I think my call to action would be, yes, we need to prioritise mental
02:37health and suicide prevention, but also bear in mind the value that the voluntary sector brings to that.