Suicide Prevention

Suicide prevention is a shared responsibility that requires action across local and national government, health and social care services, communities, and a range of national partners across public, private, and third sectors.

Suicide prevention is an important issue for local government as councils have a key role in addressing the social determinants that can impact mental wellbeing and suicidality. Councils across Scotland work to reduce inequalities, support communities, and ensure that local services work together to prevent suicide and provide support to people affected by suicide.

  • What is Suicide Prevention?

    Suicide prevention is often understood as a crisis response; however, the national strategy for suicide prevention takes a much broader view of what suicide prevention requires to have an impact: focussing clearly on inequalities and wider social and environmental determinants. Effective suicide prevention requires a population public health approach, with work across different levels:

    Prevention: Reduce the likelihood that people will develop suicidal thoughts. This is directly linked to work which addresses social determinants of suicide and supports mental wellbeing and self-management. This may include work which promotes wellbeing, youth work and learning opportunities.

    Early intervention: Provide the right support at the earliest opportunity where there is an increased risk of suicidal ideation. This would include work to address child poverty, homelessness, money and debt advice, social isolation and loneliness.

    Intervention: Provide the right support at the earliest opportunity to reduce the likelihood that someone with suicidal thoughts will act on those thoughts. This might include training for staff working in specific settings, safety planning, implementing recommendations for clinical care, and crisis support.

    Postvention: Provide information and support to families and carers who support someone who has attempted suicide and for those bereaved by suicide.

    Recovery: Provide support for someone who has experienced suicidal thoughts or has attempted suicide to support wellbeing and recovery.

    Suicide prevention goes far beyond mental health services and requires work across all sectors and communities. It is everyone’s responsibility and it requires all of us to play our part.

  • Scotland's Suicide Prevention Strategy and COSLA Governance

    Scotland's current suicide prevention strategy, Creating Hope Together, is jointly owned by COSLA and Scottish Government. ‘Suicide Prevention Scotland’ is the national delivery collective established to support implementation of the strategy and bring together partners from across Scotland.

    COSLA’s role is to ensure that local government is central to Scotland’s approach to suicide prevention. As joint owner of Creating Hope Together with Scottish Government, COSLA provides political leadership and oversight, represents the views and experience of councils, shapes policy, and supports alignment between national ambitions and local delivery. This reflects the important role councils play in addressing the wider social, economic, and environmental factors that impact suicide risk.

    Creating Hope Together sets out a 10-year vision for reducing suicide and supporting those affected by suicide based around four key outcomes:

    The strategy strongly links to the early intervention and prevention approach of the Population Health Framework and the ambitions of Public Service Reform.

    To progress the whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach outlined in the strategy under Outcome 1, the latest Action Plan (2026-2029) outlines 8 cross-cutting policy areas which COSLA officers, in close collaboration with Scottish Government, Samaritans, and wider partners across the Suicide Prevention Scotland collective, are focussing on:

    • poverty / child poverty
    • education
    • being care experienced
    • employment and employability
    • housing and homelessness
    • substance use
    • domestic abuse
    • criminal justice

    COSLA Leaders, COSLA’s Health and Social Care Board, and COSLA’s Children and Young People Board are key parts of the political governance and oversight of the Suicide Prevention Strategy. An annual report on progress towards delivering the strategy’s ambitions is approved by the Health and Social Care Board each year.

  • Local Action Plans and Governance

    The vast majority of Scottish Local Authority areas have a suicide prevention lead who co-ordinates local suicide prevention activity. National implementation leads based in Public Health Scotland provide support to local areas and have developed an extensive toolkit to support the development of local action plans.

    Responsibility for local leadership of suicide prevention sits with Chief Officers (usually the Local Authority CEO) within their public protection role. This means the oversight of a local area suicide prevention action plan is likely to sit within the remit of Chief Officer Groups or Community Planning Partnerships, depending on the structure within the local area.

    Responsibility for development of a local suicide prevention action plan is usually delegated to a multi-agency steering group, with regular reporting into Chief Officer Groups (COGs) to monitor progress. Below is an example of how local governance can function.

  • The Role of Councillors in Suicide Prevention

    Councillors have a unique and varied role in suicide prevention, including, but not limited to, the following:

    Ensuring local activity reflects community needs
    Councillors can act as a ‘bridge’ between communities and the council to ensure that local suicide prevention activity meets the needs of local communities. Key to this is engaging actively with local suicide prevention leads and steering groups in two-way ongoing dialogue – both with leads providing updates through governance structures, and councillors informing leads of local needs emerging through casework and constituency engagement.

    Influencing policy and resource decisions
    Councillors have strategic influence which can ensure suicide prevention is considered across relevant policies, plans and funding decisions. Councillors can also help secure sustainable investment for prevention, early intervention, training and postvention support and encourage the use of local data and lived experience evidence to inform decision-making. Councillors can champion local suicide prevention campaigns and scrutinise council policies and decisions to ensure they are contributing to hope, safety, and connection in communities.

    Responsible communication and signposting
    Councillors have a key leadership role in ensuring suicide is talked about in a way which reduces stigma and limits potential further harm (which may occur, for example, through ‘contagion’) and in ensuring they can signpost constituents to the appropriate support. The Suicide Prevention Scotland website has a helpful local service finder by Local Authority area for young people and adults to support with this.

    Careful and consistent language can help improve understanding, reduce stigma, and reduce the risk of imitational behaviour or distress to people with experience of suicide, including bereaved family and friends. The Samaritans Communications Guidance provides 'Do's and Don'ts' regarding use of language in relation to suicide:

  • Data on Suicide

    Each autumn, National Records Scotland (NRS) publishes data for deaths which were registered in the previous calendar year. At the same time, NRS publishes amendments to their previous annual publication which has often been subject to additional scrutiny and completed investigations.

    Although every suicide prevention strategy and action plan will have a focus on reducing suicide, data on deaths by suicide only provides one measure of the impact our suicide prevention efforts are having. It does not tell the whole picture.

    The NRS data publication often attracts local and national media, so councillors may receive both media and constituent correspondence regarding this data. Caution is advised when engaging with the media around the data, as there is strong evidence that stories about suicide which focus on the deaths can have a negative impact on other people and lead to further suicidality.

    The Samaritans have published guidance on media reporting and are able to deliver workshops to help people who may come into contact with the media focus on information which is helpful and not harmful.

    Multi-agency groups in local areas will also work with police to monitor real-time local data and a number of local authority areas use the ‘QES’ suicide surveillance system which brings together information inputted at a local level (police, ambulance, mental health services) to provide a more comprehensive view of circumstances surrounding a suspected suicide or suicide attempt.

    Data from the NRS and local service intelligence supports councils and partners to monitor emerging concerns, understand local patterns and inequalities, target prevention activity, and inform local action plan development.

  • Support for Children and Young People

    The Suicide Prevention Scotland local service finder provides information on suicide prevention support services available for young people in each local authority area, and the webpage on support for young people provides further information on key resources.

    One of these resources is the Enabling Conversations toolkit, developed with young people to help them think about what to do if they are having thoughts of suicide. An implementation pack has also been developed to support practitioners to roll out the Enabling Conversations toolkit in their organisations and local areas.

    The Youth Advisory Group, comprised of a diverse group of young people (aged 16-24) who have personal experiences of suicide and bereavement by suicide, co-produces and develops Suicide Prevention Scotland’s work for children and young people, including shaping policy and practice.

    Education is one of the eight policy priority areas within the latest Suicide Prevention Action Plan, and COSLA’s Children and Young People Board provides expertise and oversight of COSLA’s work to develop guidance and professional learning resources for schools and further and higher education partners on suicide prevention.

  • Further Information

    For further information about COSLA's work on suicide prevention, or to discuss local government involvement in Suicide Prevention Scotland activities, please contact health@cosla.gov.uk

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