Lucinda welcomes suicide prevention expert, Jessi Beyer, to discuss the critical yet often overlooked topic of suicide prevention in the workplace.
Jessi shares her personal journey into this field, stemming from a life-changing experience in high school, and emphasises the importance of equipping non-mental health professionals, particularly HR practitioners, with the tools to recognise and respond to signs of distress among colleagues. The conversation also introduces the LIFE model—Listen, Inquire, Form a safety plan, and Eliminate lethal means—as a practical framework for supporting individuals in crisis.
The LIFE model consists of four key steps: Listen, Inquire, Form a safety plan, and Eliminate lethal means. This framework helps non-mental health professionals effectively support individuals in crisis.
Dramatic changes in behaviour, appearance, and substance use can indicate someone is struggling. It's important to be aware of these signs and to actively check in with colleagues who may be exhibiting such changes.
Effective communication is crucial in supporting someone in distress. Key skills include reflection, minimal encouragers, mirroring, open-ended questions, summary statements, and the use of silence to create a safe space for sharing.
In high-stress situations, such as someone threatening self-harm, the focus should be on slowing down the conversation, building rapport, and listening actively, while also ensuring that professional help is called."It's those people that are kind of those frontline supports, it's friends, it's family members, it's colleagues that are going to be the people that recognise suicidal ideation first."
"If you can do those four things, you will be able to handle and de-escalate the vast majority of suicidal or mental health crises that you might encounter in your workplace."
"One of the biggest risk factors for suicide is feeling like you don't have people around you."
"If you can combine some of those statistics of like, it's here and it's costing us something, sometimes that's enough to change the tides in an organisation that doesn't think they need to care about mental health."
Jessi Beyer - https://jessibeyerinternational.com/
The HR Uprising Podcast | Apple | Spotify | Stitcher
The HR Uprising LinkedIn Group
How to Prioritise Self-Care (The HR Uprising)
How To Be A Change Superhero - by Lucinda Carney
HR Uprising Mastermind - https://hruprising.com/mastermind/
www.changesuperhero.com
Get your copy of How To Be A Change Superhero by emailing at [email protected]
Website: https://jessibeyerinternational.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessierinbeyer/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsjessibeyer/
Lucinda Carney is a Business Psychologist with 15 years in Senior Corporate L&D roles and a further 10 as CEO of Actus Software where she worked closely with HR colleagues helping them to solve the same challenges across a huge range of industries. It was this breadth of experience that inspired Lucinda to set up the HR Uprising community to facilitate greater collaboration across HR professionals in different sectors, helping them to ‘rise up’ together.
“If you look up, you rise up”
Join the LinkedIn community - https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13714397/
Email: [email protected]
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucindacarney/
Twitter: @lucindacarney
Instagram: @hruprising
Facebook: @hruprisingThis Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/