Resources: Review - Exercises in preventing self-harm and suicide

The CD provides different scenarios and the training exercises will aid interactive training and group discussions. Each training exercise takes about two hours to complete and the material includes ideas for further work.

It is extremely important to distinguish between on the one hand a genuine suicide attempt and, on the other, self-harm without intent of suicide, which has been covered effectively in this pack. A more in-depth section on the impact on professionals, and the strategies to tackle common problems within inpatient care would have been useful. A common mistake among medical staff is to measure the severity of the emotion or distress by the type or extent of the injury. This only leads to young people feeling that the self-inflicted harm has to be progressively more damaging to be taken seriously. At times, it can become "an unspoken competition between patients".