National Inquiry into Self-Harm and its implications for Scotland – 6th October 2006

I had an excellent day yesterday in Edinburgh. Fully energised with Haggis for breakfast the day began with networking and beginning my quest to ensure that nearly everyone received a LifeSIGNS leaflet from me!

The conference was opened by Catherine McLoughlin, Chairman of the Inquiry, followed by an excellent speech about the Inquiry from Marcia Brophy. Having been a while since I read the Inquiry it was useful to refresh my memory. There followed a short talk by a Scottish MSP, Robin Harper.

During the panel session I totally amazed myself by making a comment or two. I raised the issue that while the Inquiry was about young people, I worry that it means that older people will be ignored. Mr Harper joked that his next meeting was with Age Concern! I also mentioned my concern that media representation of self-injury is getting slightly repetitive and we need to be moving forward.

Following networking and cookies, I attended the “Research, Evaluation and Monitoring” workshop. I did find this slightly disappointing as stupidly I volunteered to do the flipchart notes, so couldn’t participate as much as I wanted to. The Chair of the group, Steve Platt from the University of Edinburgh seemed to over-emphasise the link between self-harm and suicide. Luckily however, he brought this up at the end of the day, and Andrew McCulloch (Chief Exec of the Mental Health Foundation) answered his question saying something along the lines that it is emotional distress, not self-harm per se that leads to suicide. My sentiments exactly!

Lunchtime was an excellent chance to network, and I met so many interesting people throughout the day – teachers, nurses, social workers, young people, researchers, people from Childline, See Me, Choose Life and Penumbra among others. The most frequent question I was asked was “Where are you based?” By the end I felt that if I had to explore once more that we are web-based, that we are all volunteers and have day jobs as well, that I was going to scream!!! But it really was so nice being able to tell people about LifeSIGNS and what we are doing and trying to achieve.

In the afternoon I went to the “Promotion, awareness and perceptions” session, which was very enjoyable, and included talks from Susan Ramsay from See Me, and Kathleen Peter from Penumbra. Luckily I got to talk a lot more at this session, and I’m sure that everyone was sick of me by the end of the day!

The day was finished with talks from Geoff Huggins (Scottish Executive), Andrew McCulloch from MHF (I made sure he got a leaflet!), and Samantha Hyde the acting director of the Camelot Foundation.

I really could go on forever about the day, but I will just say the main things that came out for me personally throughout the day:

The Scottish See Me Campaign is excellent. We need something similar in England and Wales.
The Scottish politicians seem far more involved, and interested in self-injury awareness.
I know we already emphasise that self-injury affects people of all ages. But I feel we really need to push the issue that self-injury doesn’t stop when people reach their 26th birthday. Otherwise I fear that older people will be lost under the young people!

So, it’s got me thinking various things. For SIAD 2006 I wrote to my local MP Tony Cunningham with a wristband and got a nice letter back. I’m wondering if maybe I should set up a meeting with him of some sort? I’m wondering if there might be a way of piloting the See Me adverts in England (perhaps dubbed over with English accents), in focus groups, to see the impact they have on people and whether this approach might be possible in England and Wales. This is something that I feel could potentially be government funded.
Of course this would involved a lot of work, and collaboration with various organisations and people. But these are just my random fleeting thoughts. I’ll leave you all to ponder!