The Rain within the Rainbow is a five-year Wellcome Trust funded project led by Dr Hazel Marzetti (University of Edinburgh) seeking to transform understandings of suicide and suicide prevention in UK LGBTQ+ communities through the life course.
The project has four phases.
- Mapping the landscape of UK LGBTQ+ suicide prevention, to better understand which services exist and gather together example of good practice by talking to expert practitioners working in the service. In addition to this, we will also seek to identify 5 international examples of excellence.
- Learning from lived experience using a combination of interviews and digital methods to better understand LGBTQ+ people’s lived experiences of living with and/or recovering from suicidal distress. In particular, seeking to understand a diverse range of lived experience from across the UK’s many LGBTQ+ communities.
- Learning from friends and families who have lost an LGBTQ+ loved one to suicide, to understand the circumstances leading up to the bereavement, as well as experiences of bereavement support.
- Co-creating ideas for tailored LGBTQ+ suicide prevention, co-produced with LGBTQ+ people who have lived experience of suicide, families and friends bereaved by suicide and practitioners working with LGBTQ+ people living with suicidal distress.
The project aims to enhance understandings of LGBTQ+ suicide across the lifecourse, and develop principles to underpin a tailored approach to LGBTQ+ suicide prevention in the UK, but ultimately we want the project to be as useful as possible to the people this research affects: LGBTQ+ living with suicidal distress, the practitioners and loved ones supporting them, and people who have lost an LGBTQ+ loved one to suicide. So, if you are interested in the project and would like to keep up to date with our activities, please get in touch with hazel.marzetti@ed.ac.uk or sign up below to get emails directly through the blog.
