For a bit of background, I was invited to give evidence because I had replied to the committee’s consultation on the strategy back in March 2024, and because of my previous research both on LGBTQ+ youth suicide in Scotland and more broadly on UK suicide prevention policies (2009-2019) and the public’s responses to them.

In my consultation response, I advocated for the provision both of mental health support for people who are experience suicidal thoughts, feelings and distress, as well as tackling more structural and systemic contributors to suicide such as poverty, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia, racism and ableism (to name a few). This multi-level approach to suicide prevention is ambitiously proposed within Creating Hope Together, but we know that it will be no easy feat for the government to deliver on this. This whole-of-govenment, multi-sectoral approach is innovative and unlike many other countries’ policies that have chosen to focus on more indivisualistic methods of suicide prevention alone. It therefore necessitates a whole new way of working that involves a huge amount of coordiantion and complexity.

As a researcher specialising in LGBTQ+ suicide and suicide prevention, I have been pleased that this policy (much like it’s forerunners) mentions LGBTI people as a group that may have specific suicide prevention needs (along with racialised people and migrants). But, as is often the case in policies that have to cover a lot of topics in not a huge amount of words and pages, what prevention practices to meet those needs would look like is left off the page. As policy implementation progresses, I am interested to see what guidance might develop to help services, organisation and local authorities who want to grow their prevention practices for LGBTQ+ people. Essential within this will be (as ever) an intersectional lens of consideration: for example we often talk about the suicide prevention needs of men (as a group who are consistently found to die by suicide at higher rates) and so when thinking about LGBTQ+ suicide we will have to consider the needs of gay, bisexual and trans men specifically. Similarly, as discussed at length in the parliamentary committee, as researchers we know that living in poverty is a major contributor to suicide, and therefore considering the needs of LGBTQ+ people living in poverty will also be key when developing suicide prevention tailored for LGBTQ+ communities. This work is of course not easy, but crucial for progress to be made.

Whilst I was surprised and a little daunted to be invited to the committee, it really was a positive experience and I felt able to answer the MSPs questions, drawing on the data I had collected across my research. A big help within this was writing to the committee’s clerks to get information about how the committee would work and what would be expected of me. I had no idea that I was able to do this when my invite first came through, but after talking to a friend who encouraged me to write to them, I can say it was incredibly helpful both for putting my mind at ease and at helping me to know how to prepare.

Very often when I am working with research participants, they ask about the possibilities for the research to influence changes in policy and practice. Unfortunately, this question is often asked at the mid-point of a project, before I have any data, and although I am always very hopeful that I’ll be able to share my research with those that have the power to make change, I am never 100% that it will be possible. Last week, it really felt like I was able to do this, even managing to quote one of the participants in a previous research project to the policy makers that she so hoped to be able to influence. For me that was a real win!

For more information on this you can watch the whole evidence session here or read the written report here.