Suicide Prevention UK (SP-UK) is an award-winning charity that helps people who are struggling with their mental health or experiencing suicidal thoughts. Founded by Michael Everett in 2018, SP-UK is made up of volunteers who offer their skills and compassion to help people in their time of need – from distributing patrol teams in and around Bristol, to providing a helpline to anyone who needs a helping hand.
The challenge: Signposting to resources over the phone
The SP-UK helpline provides a safe space for people to talk and be heard without judgement. Each person’s circumstances vary from call to call: from someone who feels lonely, to someone who has started having suicidal thoughts.
The helpline is run by a highly-trained team of call handlers, who not only lend an ear but guide people towards the support they need beyond the call. Before coming to FireText, they were finding it difficult to ‘signpost’ to support over the phone. Signposting means to give a person the details of other organisations that can help with their specific needs.
When someone is in crisis, panic or despair, taking in this information is difficult. It relies on them making notes or remembering numbers and websites. And so the call handlers needed a way to deliver signposting resources to people via a channel that matched their empathetic approach.
Solution: Supporting people beyond the call with SMS
Founder, Michael, suggested bringing in SMS to support call handlers in signposting people to the specific safeguarding resources they need after ringing the helpline.
This was not only important for people in crisis or despair – as it’s difficult to remember or collate all of the resources over the phone – but it also provided reassurance for the call handlers. They could send this information for the person to digest when they’re ready.
Now, the call handlers can gather all of the information and safeguarding resources and deliver this to them from FireText. The text is like a ‘bookmark’ for that person to have to hand when they feel the time is right to move into their next steps.
The results: Resources to hand for people in crisis
The call handlers find FireText easy to use and can be comforted in the knowledge that people leave the call with the resources they need. SMS simply helps them achieve their mission; to be there for people in their dark times and to guide them to the most relevant support available to them at that time, to get them the help they deserve.
Their set-up allows each call handler to enter their own account on an individual level, and the credits are managed by a ‘master’ account. This makes it easy and efficient to manage, so the team can focus on the people they’re helping.
The future: Communicating with donors
The team at SP-UK are looking at communicating with donors for the charity to show their appreciation for the continued support of the team’s incredible work. This may include updates and thank yous – keeping donors in the loop and the momentum going on the donations that allow SP-UK to help people when they need it most.