You
and Yours ~ Looking at New Initiatives
Suicide Respite
Centre
Presenter Liz
Barclay
with Carolyn
Atkinson,
BBC
Radio 4 ~ Wed 21st January 2005
(Click
here
to listen to the original BBC programme using Real
Player)
The success of Britain’s
first Suicide Respite Centre, Maytree.
The figures make disturbing reading - eighteen people kill themselves
every day in the UK .
The Mental Health Czar has
been looking for new ways of tackling the problem, and one initiative
that is proving successful is Britain 's first Suicide Respite Centre.
It opened its doors four
years ago, offering people feeling suicidal a safe place to go that
wasn't a hospital.
We visited Maytree - as the centre's called - back then in 2002 - and
since then almost 200 people have stayed there.
Offering a one-off stay of
just 4 nights, the approach was pioneering, high risk, and, at that
time, unproven.
But a recent independent
evaluation has confirmed that not only is it working - but that it could
be copied across the country.
Our Disability reporter Carolyn
Atkinson has been back to find out why...
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