BBC 1Xtra: Screaming Without Words

BBC 1Xtra have produced an audio documentary about self-injury called 'Screaming Without Words'; it's a frank discussion about the issues surrounding SI, and it may well be triggering to some people - it's aim is to raise understanding among people who don't know a lot about SI.

The documentary features Janet from LifeSIGNS, and several ernest interviews with young people from various backgrounds, cultures and religions, as well as notes from nurses and teachers.

Janet discusses her cultural background, what she describes as an identity crisis. Janet recorded her interview in November 2005.

You can listen to the audio file online right now, see the 'Screaming Without Words' page from 1Xtra.

I will be recording my response to the documentary tomorrow at the 1Xtra studio, and I can only hope that I speak as clearly and as well as our Janet and the other brave people who told their story.

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You will need 'RealPlayer' to listen to audio from the BBC, but you can also try 'Real Alternative' if you would prefer.

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LifeSIGNS 2007 SIA Booklet!

Hi all, please read the press release for the 2007 LifeSIGNS booklet. Pass this message on to anyone and everyone you know, and hopefully we will be bombarded with pre-orders! This really is a very important time for LifeSIGNS!

LifeSIGNS Charity Issues the Self Injury Awareness Booklet Free Booklet in time for Self Injury Awareness Day, 1st March

LifeSIGNS, a prominent user-led charity that raises awareness about self-injury, has published their 2007 Self Injury Awareness Booklet, and is also making it available for free download. The LifeSIGNS booklet is written by the Directors of LifeSIGNS who have personal experience of self-injury. This third edition has been revised and expanded to consider self-injury from a personal and professional point of view, and addresses issues about self-help, self-injury in schools, and how parents and healthcare workers can help someone who self-injures. People who self-injure will recognise the frank material in this booklet, and carers and friends will discover more about how to approach self-injury.

“First published in 2004, the SIA booklet has become a central part of LifeSIGNS,” said Mary, a Trustee of LifeSIGNS, “The new version builds upon these excellent foundations to create a publication which is an essential read for all those affected by self-injury.
“We hope that many people will wish to get a hard copy, I strongly believe that there should be a copy in every university and school library, every counselling facility, and on the bookshelf of every healthcare professional!”

The Self Injury Awareness Booklet has a foreword by eminent author, Barent Walsh, PhD. LifeSIGNS can be found at www.lifesigns.org.uk and has a vibrant website for people who hurt themselves, and health care practitioners. The Self Injury Awareness Booklet is available from: http://www.selfharm.org/publications/sia/index.html and can be downloaded or purchased in hard copy for £5. Please note, it can't be downloaded until 1st March

West Virginia news article mentions LifeSIGNS

With SIAD nearly upon us it's really positive to see articles in the media which make reference to it. This is a generally good article, although it does suggest that self-injury only affects teenagers - one of our frequent niggles at LifeSIGNS! The picture might be upsetting or triggering to some people, so please be careful if you decide to look at the article.

The best part is that LifeSIGNS is mentioned where it says "For several years now, groups like the English-based LifeSIGNS and the American Self-Harm Information Clearinghouse, have campaigned for cities, states and nations to recognize March 1 as Self-Injury Awareness Day. " - unfortunately no link to our website is given, but this is still fantastic news! In West Virginia it is hoped that SIAD will become an officially recognised day, so finger crossed :o)

Roll on SIAD is all I have to say! Oh, and please pre-order the 2007 booklet - remember it will be available for FREE download on Thursday, but will be available to those in the UK as a hard copy for just £5 + £1 P&P.!

Sweets and Leaflets

LifeSIGNS is cool!!! That's what I got told when I was giving out our wonderful leaflets and factsheets in a halls of residence at Sheffield University anyway!

In an attempt to raise awareness for SIAD, which seems to be creeping up ever so quickly, I decided to write to a few halls of residences to hold an 'LifeSIGNS Information Evening'. Tonight I held my first one. Tactically armed with free sweets and lollies and a stack of publications, I erected a cute little LifeSIGNS stall in the main reception to get as much publicity as possible!

At first, alot of the people were attracted to the sweets, took a factsheet or two but then threw them in the bin right in front of me. Some even got offended when I offered them a leaflet - 'Oh, I don't do that kind of thing' and 'Urgh, that's scary', were among many of the typical misconceived assumptions about SI that I heard. Which then made me more determined to spread the truth abuut SI and try to smash the prejudices many people already held.

So it was time to get tough! A free lolly meant that they had to take a leaflet or factsheet and listen to me talk about afew things - what SI is, why some people may feel the need to do it, that fact that it isn't just adolescent girls who do it. Some became engaged and became more interested and asked questions, while some ended it with, 'Can I take an extra sweet now I've listened to you?!'. There were afew who were genuinely interested and had been affected by SI and I hope, through all the wasted factsheets that were thrown in the bin, and the prejudices that were held by some, that their first introduction to LifeSIGNS has been a positive one and they will find us useful, and realise that LifeSIGNS can indeed provide the best Self-Injury Guidence and Network Support.

Afew lessons have been learnt from tonight. Ultimately there still needs to be a lot more work done in raising awareness and changing the perceptions of those who mistakenly think that SI is 'weird' or 'scary'. Even if people didn't read the factsheets or leaflets properly, at least they've heard us talk about SI and LifeSIGNS. And its made me more determined to do more to raise awareness and improve resources - the fact that at least three people tonight found out that they are not alone in their SI and that support is out there, has reaffirmed what LifeSIGNS is all about and that we do make a difference. That's why, as one boy who I was talking to about the work that LifeSIGNS does stated, 'you're cool!!!'.

Training, training and then some more...

It has been a while since I've blogged, I have been meaning to post about some recent training events for a while. During January I have trained a local branch of the Samaritans, a group of support workers and counsellors at a Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Centre, and attended a Connexions training day for teachers.

The more training I do, the more confident I am in the usefullness of the information we provide. The feedback is always positive and even if sometimes I think I haven't really presented my best, I get a lot of questions and interest in our leaflets and website. The only trouble is there is just so much to say!

I strongly believe that the best thing people can do to start helping who self-harm is to read more about it, and thus education can lead to a better understanding of what is needed from them. We cannot answer questions on how to deal with individual cases, because we are all coping with very different things but if people can begin to grasp the fact that many people who self-harm have issues with control or self-esteem or that it can feel like this is the only way we can say how we are feeling, then they are in a much better position to be of help.

LifeSIGNS Training Brochure [PDF Version; 300KB]

Tao: Scars

I was interested to see that a fave book of mine is being audio-blogged over at 365tao.net - you can download 90 second long MP3s, or subscribe to the RSS , or just get the podcast directly within iTunes.

I noticed that number 29 (outr of 365 of course!) dealt with scars - the author may well be talking about physical scras to begin with, but he mostly focuses on the emotional scars that life can give us.

I think we can all understand the emotional side of scaring can't we, as well as the physical?

So, if you fancy listening to 90 seconds of Chineses wisdom, check out the MP3 about scars now.


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Self-Injury Awareness Day Activities

SIAD is the 1st of March, and here at LifeSIGNS, we're very interested in the awareness raising activities of our members, and we've put together an updated pack of things you can do to raise awareness about self-injury.

Check out the LifeSIGNS SIAD page, and see what you can download and use.

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Not just another policy for schools!

Today LifeSIGNS are proud to launch guidelines for schools on writing a policy to deal with self-injury – essentially these are aimed towards schools with pupils in the 11-18 age group.

So, where did this idea come from I hear you say?!
1. In my day job I work with school governors (for the Council), and as a team we get frequent requests for model policies on a variety of issues.
2. I read Barent Walsh’s excellent book “Treating self-injury” in which he gives guidelines for a policy for schools in the USA, and says that every school should have a written protocol for dealing with self-injury.
3. I was writing the new chapter for the SIA booklet which is aimed at schools and needed some useful and innovative information to include.

As a result I started thinking, and searching for available information about self-injury/self-harm school policies in the UK. The search didn’t lead me to a great deal. I did liaise with Wiltshire County Council and the author of their self-harm booklet for schools. This is a nice little publication and does include a bit about policy writing, and I’m sure it has been useful for many schools. However, I felt it was lacking in specific information about writing a policy. Therefore I could see that there was a significant gap in information that is freely available to schools – and one for LifeSIGNS to fill!

Schools often want model policies, and for certain issues this is possible (at least within local areas). Many county councils provide model policies for their areas, for instance HR policies dealing with staff discipline and grievance. Schools can often choose whether to adopt these policies or use their own.

There are certain policies which are statutory – Special Educational Needs, Sex and Relationships Education, Performance Management, Lettings, Child Protection, Pupil Discipline and Nutritional Standards to name just a few.
Then there are additional policies – for instance, Drugs, Homework and Recruitment and Retention.

According to the book “Policies: a guide for school governors and headteachers” by Michelle Robbins & Martin Baxter (Adamson Publishing, 2004 edition), policies need to be based upon the following:
Why the school exists (its mission)
What it believes in (its values)
What it is trying to achieve (its vision)
What it is going to do to make all of this a reality (its aims)
The underpinning rules that will guide action (principles)
The practicalities of implementation (policies and procedures)
(Robbins & Baxter; 2004 p.7)

Of course every school is different, and policies have to be written accordingly. However, with the book mentioned above (which happens to live on my desk at work as it is a very useful resource) as a general guide to policy writing, I have created the LifeSIGNS guidelines for writing a self-injury policy.

Whether or not schools choose to refer to these guidelines is of course up to them. It might be that schools do not wish to have yet another policy, but that they want to add specific self-injury information to an existing policy. The main aim of this exercise is not to tell schools that they need a self-injury policy, rather it is to achieve the following:
Alert schools to the fact that self-injury is a problem, and that it can NOT be ignored.
To let schools know about LifeSIGNS and that we are here to support schools and teachers.

In a discussion at the AGM, Kay pointed out that there is no point in a policy if it is not followed through – this is absolutely right! It is all very nice writing a policy, signing it, and letting it gather dust in a cupboard for 3 years until its review. However, this will not serve any useful purpose, except perhaps for schools ‘to be seen to be doing something’ about the issue.

Self-injury is an issue which needs to be taken seriously, however schools choose to approach it. At LifeSIGNS we have heard some dreadful stories about pupils being excluded permanently due to their self-injury. This just can’t be allowed to happen anymore. Whatever schools decide, they do need to know how to deal with self-injury, so LifeSIGNS hopes that these guidelines will be useful at least as a starting point.

The other month I heard of a governor saying that bullying didn’t happen in their school. It’s time for people to wake up and see that no matter how ‘good’ a school is, their pupils will face the same problems as pupils in any other school – this includes bullying and self-injury. It is how a school deals with the problems that really determines how ‘good’ a school is.