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The Secret Behind My Bulletproof Resilience In Crisis Support
When I started volunteering in suicide prevention, growth hurt. So badly. Now? My work improves with ease. I used to ask: why is it so difficult to just… get better? Some calls would go super well and I’d feel like I did a great job. Only to connect the dots later and realise I’d projected…
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How Reflective Practice Improved My Suicide Prevention Skills
More than anything, this is what helped me grow. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and hope you can learn from them. This article breaks down how reflective practice systems changed the game for me in suicide prevention and crisis support. Self awareness, skillset growth, competence and confidence all greatly improved. It covers my experience,…
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Using Abstraction In Suicide Prevention
There’s a powerful, hidden skill in suicide prevention. Read this article and you’ll be able to practice it in every day conversation – maybe even with people in distress. Who knows, it might help you support someone down from the edge. It’s called ‘Abstraction’. Abstraction is very popular and well understood in other fields like…
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How To Write With Life Saving Clarity In Digital Crisis Support
In learning suicide prevention there’s a tonne of obstacles and challenges. It’s hard, scary work and you’re here remove some of those obstacles and equip yourself with tools, skills and mindset to lower the barrier for others too. Long term this kind of work – preventing suicide – changes people, changes families, changes communities and…
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How To Finally Stop Asking ‘Why’ To People In Crisis
‘Why do you think he lied to me?’ she asked yet again, as though we hadn’t covered it a hundred times this week. My eyes wanted to roll as far back into my head as they could, I didn’t let them. I’d been here so many times in my life, with my mum, my exes,…
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How To Validate Without Taking Sides
When navigating the often uncomfortable journey to non-judgement, there can be a lot to balance. Between staying within the framework, balancing professionalism with authenticity and learning to gain, spend and repair trust… it’s a lot! On my journey into mental health support work and non-judgemental listening, I always found it helpful to simplify as much…
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Sentence Stems to Invite More Information
When I first started I really struggled. I had no idea what was professional and what wasn’t. How was I meant to be authentic without colluding? Hell I had a hard enough time even holding down basic conversation! Well over time I figured some stuff out, that’s why there’s a lot of theory in this…
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Trust As Currency
In mental health work the trust you’re developing is like a bank account. You deposit and withdraw. Over the time you have with your help seeker, the level of trust in your account will change. Sometimes due to stuff you can control (like what you say / income you generate), sometimes due to stuff you…
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Edit Less, Impact More with Sentence Stem Workshopping
Why to Practice Workshopping Sentences When you’re in the hotseat and providing support to someone in crisis, you don’t have time to edit. You’ve got their words waiting for you on the screen, or their voice waiting for you over the phone. You don’t have the luxury of crafting a perfect reply if they’re waiting!…
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Afraid To Interrupt During Crisis Support?
When starting out supporting people in mental health, students often get caught in cyclic minimal encouragers. This is particularly easy the more the help seeker talks. As you can imagine… This can become problematic. Multiply passive crisis support listening skills by non-stop help seeker rambling skills and you have the formula for… a very ineffective…
