Funding for NUI Galway Suicide Intervention Course Restored

Image c/o NUI Galway Students' Union

FUNDING for a suicide intervention training course that was discontinued in NUI Galway in October has been restored by the HSE.

The Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training programme was scrapped due to government cutbacks, but the decision was overturned following lobbying by the Students' Union.

Patrick Clancy, the university's Convenor for Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies, has welcomed the decision to recommence the ASIST course but maintains more needs to be done. The initiative will now take place in February next year.

"I am very pleased to hear that the funding is available in 2013. In this academic year, over 50 people were due to be trained as part of this programme. However, due to the cutbacks, under 25 will now be trained . . . So, while I welcome the funding being continued in 2013, I respectfully demand that there is a second course for NUIG students put on in the latter half of the semester," Mr Clancy said.

"This course is provided at minimal cost to the HSE and it leads directly into saving the most vulnerable age group from suicide. Some 84 per cent of fatalities from suicide are male. The biggest sector susceptible to suicide is the 'male between 18 & 25' group," he added.

Mr Clancy has been lobbying all TDs in Galway, Mayo and Clare about the issue for the past three months. He also contacted An Taoiseach Enda Kenny who in turn brought the matter to the attention of Anne O'Neill, Business Area Manager with HSE West.

The ASIST course has been held on campus once a semester since 2009. Its aim is to equip participants, both students and staff, with the skills needed to provide suicide first aid for a person at risk. Over the past decade, 25,000 people have been trained in the programme nationally.

Minister for Health James Reilly confirmed the HSE's decision to re-allocate funding for the initiative last week. “The HSE acknowledges the great support they have received from the NUIG Students Union over the last number of years and plans to continue to work in partnership with the SU and deliver an ASIST workshop in NUIG in February 2013,” stated Minister Reilly.

The head of NUI Galway's Student Counselling Service has also welcomed the news, describing the initial decision to cut the programme as "short-sighted". "When authorities such as the HSE are pressed financially, training can seem like an easy cut to make," Bea Gavin commented. "The benefits from this course far outweigh the cost," she added.

Ms Gavin said she hoped the decision might lead to funding being granted for similar college-based initiatives aimed at mental health professionals. A STORM self-harm risk assessment and management training course for therapists took place in NUI Galway in January of this year but there are currently no plans for it to be re-run.

Information on ASIST is available on the National Office for Suicide Prevention website: www.nosp.ie. For further details on NUI Galway's free and confidential counselling services, contact 087-6644299 or counselling@nuigalway.ie. 


This article was also published in The Connacht Tribune and Student Independent News, NUI Galway's student newspaper.