Charities in Islington have been awarded government funding for a new project aiming to reduce men’s suicide rates.
A total of £79,068 has been granted to charities with a focus on men aged 45-64, including refugees and asylum seekers.
‘Building Resilience: Men’s Suicide Prevention Project’ is coordinated by Islington Mind, Nafsiyat Intercultural Therapy Centre and Camden City Islington Westminster Bereavement Service (CCIWBS). Throughout the project, it is estimated that they will engage with around 320 people.
“Understanding the need for such a project comes from the sobering statistics in the UK, where men accounted for three-quarters of suicide deaths in 2022,” said Lizzie Francis, who works at Nafsiyat.
“The highest rates were seen in men aged 50 to 54”, said Ms Francis.
She continued: “Studies indicate that asylum seekers have a higher risk of suicide compared to the host population, likely due to the compounding effects of trauma and the stress of acclimatising to a new society.”
The project includes a range of activities. Islington Mind will run 60 group sessions in art, sport and music, tailored for men aged 45-64. Also, 50 group therapy sessions will be run in both Arabic and English by Nafsiyat Intercultural Therapy Centre, which is aimed toward asylum seekers and refugees in the same age range.
Twelve individual therapy sessions will also be run by CCIWBS, directed towards men at risk of suicide and those who have been bereaved by suicide. These individual sessions are available to people from Islington and Camden.
Ms Francis described the importance of the project, referencing how beneficial Nafsiyat sessions have been to a refugee referred to as S.M. to protect his anonymity.
S.M. is a 58-year-old man who is originally from Iraq but fled in 1996 with his wife and three children because of conflict. They arrived in the UK in 1998 as refugees. After the devastating loss of six members of his family during conflict in Iraq, he was referred to the charity. He suffers from severe depression, with daily flashbacks and problems with sleep leaving him anxious about his remaining family’s safety in Iraq.
Ms Francis speaks Arabic, which she says is beneficial to the process: “S.M. had prior therapy with an English-speaking counsellor but felt he was unable to fully express his emotions or that his trauma was completely understood. Sharing a similar cultural background, I could relate to and comprehend his experiences on a deeper level, reinforced by my experience counselling clients with similar backgrounds.”
By the end of his sessions with the charity, S.M. had a 40% reduction in depression and anxiety symptoms, according to Nafsiyat.
If you are in a crisis, please contact the Camden & Islington NHS Crisis Line on 0800 917 3333 or Samaritans on 116 123. To access bereavement counselling, contact CCIWBS: https://www.bereavement-counselling.org/ . Islington Mind runs an Out of Hours Crisis Café, please contact 020 7263 3397. To contact Nafsiyat, please contact 020 7263 6947.
