All Queen Mary Students' Union staff should undertake suicide awareness training

Date embedded: October 2025

Liberation - inclusion - accessibilitywelfare

Date embedded: October 2025

Status: Complete

CONTENT WARNING

The following motion discusses issues related to suicide

Proposed by: Jack Juckes (QMSU Vice President Welfare)
Seconded by: Shamima Akter (QMSU President), Tiana Dinard-Samuel (QMSU Vice President Communities), Aphrodite Murray-Liddington (QMSU Vice President Science & Engineering), Cameron Storey (QMSU Vice President Humanities & Social Sciences), Mathew Robathan (BLSA President and QMSU Vice President Barts and The London)

 

What do you want?

This policy would require all Students’ Union staff to undertake mandatory suicide awareness training. This would be in the form of the free training available from the Zero Suicide Alliance (ZSA)12. There are two online modules that staff would be required to complete:

  1. 'Social Isolation Module' - “gives a brief introduction to social isolation, and how to help someone who may be isolated. This module covers adjusting to the new normal following the Coronavirus, and takes into account the significant changes in how many of us live and work.” – This module takes 5-10 minutes to complete.
  2. 'ZSA Suicide Awareness Training' - “An in-depth suicide awareness training session which aims to give you the skills and confidence to help someone who may be considering suicide. It focuses on breaking stigma and encouraging open conversations.” – This module takes around 20 minutes to complete.

Please note that there is an intermediate module available called ‘Gateway Module’, an introductory shorter version of the full ZSA Suicide Awareness Training, which takes 5-10 minutes to complete. As this is a shorter version of the full module, it would be unnecessary for staff to complete both the Gateway Module and the full module. However, if there will be a significant delay in staff being able to complete the full training module, then they should be complete the Gateway Module in the interim until they are able to complete the full module. This flexibility will allow for issues like workload variation, staff shortages etc.

If staff have previously completed this training, or a similar equivalent, they do not need to complete again.

 

Why do you want it?

Mental health is an important issue under normal circumstances, but particularly right now in the current Covid-19 pandemic. Students are increasingly struggling with mental health problems – a recent survey by NUS found that 52% of students reported worsening of their mental health since the pandemic began, and only 29% of these students had sought help2. For many, suicide is a difficult and uncomfortable topic to talk about, but being able to have these conversations can make a huge difference to those at risk. It is important that QMSU staff are equipped with the skills and confidence to talk openly about suicide as and when needed.

 

What Impact will this have?

QMSU staff will be more confident and able to have conversations about suicide with any student or other member of staff they may feel is at risk, and direct them to the support they need and deserve. This will help to prevent the occurrence of suicide and improve the mental health of our Queen Mary community. There will also be minimal financial impact on the Students’ Union as these training sessions are free to access (so no outright cost) and are short in length (so will take minimal paid staff time).

 

References

1https://www.zerosuicidealliance.com/training

2https://www.nus.org.uk/articles/over-half-of-students-mental-health-is-worse-than-before-the-pandemic

 

Recent News

Celebrating the success of the Project SEARCH interns at Queen Mary

Thu 21 Aug 2025

This year, teams across both the University and Students’ Union have had the pleasure of meeting and working w

 
Did you win something in our Balancing Life survey?

Wed 20 Aug 2025

Thank you to everyone who took part in our Balancing Life Survey 2025! Your feedback on flexible activity prog

 
Watch out for unofficial Freshers events and sold out claims

Thu 14 Aug 2025

QMSU is the only host of Official Queen Mary Freshers' Events. Get the low-down of things to watch out for wit

 
Goodbye to our Executive Officers 2024-25

Fri 01 Aug 2025

It's the end of the year and time of year again to say goodbye to our Executive Officers who have served this

 
SU Win: New Internship Programme announced

Mon 21 Jul 2025

Al-Habib Mraish, your Vice President Science & Engineering, has secured an agreement with the university for a

 
 
see more news