Breaking the Silence Programme
David Riddell Memorial CIO is delighted to have provided funding to Grassroots Suicide Prevention to support the development of its Breaking The Silence programme - a pioneering, quality-assured training course aimed at young people aged 14 and above.
Co-produced and piloted alongside youth, academics, educators, and mental health professionals, it consists of two engaging one-hour workshops designed to teach teens how to recognize the warning signs of suicidal distress in peers, respond appropriately, guide them to support, and know when to escalate serious concerns to an adult.
Initially launched in 2024 as the UK's quality-assured training for young people, the programme has already been delivered to around 1,000 Year 10 students, offering practical, life‑saving skills in a peer-to-peer format. To read more visit the Grassroots Suicide Prevention website - 2024: A Year of Impact in Suicide Prevention.
About Grassroots Suicide Prevention
Grassroots Suicide Prevention‘s vision is a future where more lives are saved from suicide, and their mission is to empower people to help save lives through connecting, educating, and campaigning.
Training with Grassroots Suicide Prevention: Grassroots Suicide Prevention’s training teaches the knowledge, skills and confidence needed to support those at risk of suicide. They work with organisations across the UK to deliver their life-saving training in suicide prevention, mental health and self-harm – to date they’ve trained over 70,000 people.
Stay Alive app: Grassroots Suicide Prevention has developed the NHS-endorsed, confidential, award-winning Stay Alive app, which is free for all to use – a suicide prevention resource full of over 800 tools and resources, in 22 languages, to help people stay safe from suicide.
Double Award Win for Breaking the Silence
Grassroots Suicide Prevention, in partnership with NICE Media, also won two prestigious national awards at the Learning Excellence Awards 2025 for the Breaking the Silence initiative.
The programme was named as Sector Winner for ‘Learning in Education’
It also received the coveted Gold Award for ‘Outstanding Course or Initiative – External’.
Read more on the Grassroots Suicide Prevention website.