LifeSIGNS will turn 21 years old in May. When we launched in 2002, the web was still young, and it seemed only American websites talked about self-injury. Now, there’s a better understanding, or at least a willingness to reference self-injury, across UK health websites. We might say that SIAD, Self-Injury Awareness Day, and the work of a multitude of researchers, health-care professionals, and passionate individuals have had an important impact on the country, and the world.

In the past few years, LifeSIGNS has been ‘on pause’ somewhat, and that’s been my fault. Now I’m ready to reinvigorate our approach to awareness and support. But the world has changed; the things I knew about social media and psychology back in 2017 aren’t perfectly relevant today.

I will recruit additional volunteers to develop and implement a new strategy through 2023. We will review all our content and channels and develop new educational and direct / indirect support services.

LifeSIGNS will evolve in ways that I can’t imagine. So long as we stick to our tenets – our firm beliefs – it will still be LifeSIGNS, but I’m ready and willing to empower a new management team to make the best decisions.

So in summary:

• LifeSIGNS is back
• I will recruit a new, hands-on management team
• We will develop a new strategy for awareness and support work
• We will review and improve all our content
• We will review our social network use.

Please register for our newsletter and follow us on Twitter to keep up-to-date with our recruitment and the evolution of our services.

As an unfunded, user-led, volunteer-led charitable organisation, we need people like you to contribute, to make sure we’re doing things you appreciate. I ask you now to contribute a blog article and donate a couple of quid.

To be honest, I haven’t dared look at the bank account! I know our monthly outgoings must be depleting it. Please donate a couple of pounds to celebrate SIAD and help us do so much more for it next year.