Global Perspectives

Next month will be the five-year anniversary since my brilliant brother Daniel died by suicide.   Dan’s life was cut short before he was 40 years old leaving behind his loving wife and two beautiful young sons.  All preventable deaths are devastating. But suicide can shatter families and friends like nothing else I’ve seen.  I have gone onto understand that suicide is the biggest killer for all ages from 5-35 years old and the biggest killer of men under 50. It is without doubt the single biggest public health challenge on preventable deaths of our times . As a society, we need to bring together our brightest minds, our financial assets and the political will to see a sustained and significant reduction in deaths from suicide. However, this blog is both about the signs of progress we are seeing and also a simple message about what you can do today, tomorrow and every day to help reduce the risk of suicide for you and your friends and family. Here for...

Written May 2017  Last month ,  I wrote a blog announcing stress as the theme of  Mental Health Awareness Week .    Reading c omments  on  social media to  a  blog is always an interesting and sometimes sobering process.  Many agreed this is a theme that is overdue serious consideration.  But one comment stood out.  ‘Why don’t you consider the stress you cause, not just the stress you experience?’ the comment read.    Next month we will be releasing the results of the largest and most comprehensive survey  on stress in the UK .   It will undoubtedly find that a significant amount of stress we experience comes from the interaction we have with other people in our lives.    So,  I decided to do a very unscientific survey.  I wanted to know from  coll eagues, friends and family about the stress that I cause them, how often it happened and in what ways I co...

(written in May 2017) Like  all social movements, the Mental Health crisis is both  personal and political …. The Mental Health Foundation’s singular focus is finding and addressing the sources of mental health problems.  We are  an organisation for all faiths and none, but  as  I   look at the issue of poor mental health  through the lens of my own faith , I find a parallel from Jesus’  approach  in meeting  the challenges  we face  today.    Men tal Health Awareness Week  this year  gave  us the opportunity to ignite a national conversation about the importance of supporting goo d mental health.  Reaching over 90 million people during the week , we asked one question :   a re  we  ‘Surviving or Thriving?’     There are two strands in our  journey towards a  mentally  thriving nation. The first is the personal, the things we can al...