Surrey Support After Suicide Service
About our service
We are service based within the county of Surrey providing a range of support to those affected by bereavement by suicide.
We provide support for people 18+ in Surrey who are bereaved by suicide e.g family, friends and people exposed to suicide e.g. witnesses, first responders, neighbours, colleagues and health and social care professionals. The service is free to access.
Our core opening hours are Monday - Friday 9am-5pm. For those who require support during the evening as a result of day time commitments, we provide support up to 8pm, so that you can access us at a time that suits you best.
Our staff team and volunteers have lived experience of bereavement by suicide which we see as being extremely important. Alongside their other professional skills and experience, this comes together to enhance our delivery of the service.
If you need a translator or interpreter in order to access our service then please get in touch with us to discuss your needs.
We also run webinars for professionals online for 1 hour to tell them more about the service. Contact us for details of the next webinar
You can download our leaflets here
- Leaflet for people bereaved by suicide e.g. family and friends
- Leaflet for people exposed to suicide e.g. witnesses, health and social care professionals
About why we are here
We know that when someone close to us dies, the grief that is experienced can bring about a range of powerful and complex feelings.
We also know that each person's experience of bereavement is unique to them but when someone dies by suicide, the powerful feelings become more complex, increase considerably and bring about many other practical issues to deal with.
We know that people bereaved by suicide need support at the time that is right for them – we support people at any stage of bereavement, including immediately after your loss or in the longer term when you feel ready to access support.
How to refer and access support
To make a initial referral or to refer yourself you can complete this referral form and return this to us, Alternatively you can call us on- 07483 301 214 or email: surreysupportaftersuicide@rethink.org
We can help you complete the referral form (or you can complete this yourself), and we can start identifying ways in which we can provide you with the help you need.
If we receive a referral or enquiry for support for someone under the age of 18, we are able to direct them to alternative sources of support.
What support do we offer?
One to one practical and emotional support
This is provided through face to face sessions, online, telephone or WhatsApp. We provide support in a way that will help you most.
The one to one support is provided by a Suicide Bereavement Worker and is offered across 6 personalised weekly support sessions. This is followed by 6 fortnightly sessions, with the option to extend support if needed. After your one to one sessions end, we provide monthly check-in sessions and we provide support on key anniversary dates, if you would find this helpful.
A little bit more about the one to one support we provide
- Person-centred, emotional support to talk about the bereavement, discuss coping strategies and find ways of dealing with your loss.
- Practical support including help to navigate processes e.g. police, funeral arrangements, inquests, the media, notifying companies of the death and support to talk to your employer.
- Signposting and referral to other services.
- Providing verbal and written information about bereavement by suicide and other related matters.
Bereavement peer support groups
A provide closed support groups with a maximum of 6 participants. The group is facilitated by a Suicide Bereavement Worker and a volunteer with lived experience of bereavement by suicide. Groups are offered once each week for 12 sessions, lasting up to one and a half hours.
The groups provide:
- A safe and supportive space to discuss and explore, without judgment, the impact of your bereavement upon yourself, your family and those you connect with.
- Share stories and experiences in a safe environment.
- Gain peer support and build connections with others
Bereavement counselling
We provide bereavement counselling for people using our volunteer counsellors for between 6-8 weekly sessions with the option to extend to an additional 8 fortnightly sessions as needed. You can download our counselling poster here.
Suicide bereavement training for health and social care professionals
We deliver free suicide bereavement training workshops to health and social care professionals working across Surrey.
These are held in various different locations and are run throughout the year.
Each training session lasts a full working day and they are run during the weekdays.
If you would like to attend one of these sessions then please get in touch with us to find out the next available dates
Useful resources, training and factsheets
We have collated information on a range of downloadable useful booklets, factsheets, online training courses about suicide bereavement.
This includes
- How to cope with suicidal thoughts
- How to help someone else who is feeling suicide
- How to cope with dealing with loss after bereavement by suicide
- Help is at Hand Booklet
You can view them by clicking here.
We have also created some blogs on social media around different aspects of bereavement which you can read here:
We obtained a grant from the Department of Health Social Care Suicide Prevention Fund to create suicide bereavement literature into other languages
The grant helped us to translate the English version of the Suicide - Coping With Loss factsheet into the 10 most spoken non-English languages in the UK. This is to make sure that people from BAME communities and people whose nationality is not English have access to bereavement information in their own language. The new languages include Arabic, Spanish, French, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Urdu, Polish, Portuguese and Chinese.
The link above takes you to the English version that can be read online or downloaded into a PDF. If you scroll down to the overview section you will see clickable links to download the factsheet in the non English languages.
We want to know who has accessed these translated factsheets and its usefulness. So we would be extremely grateful if you could complete this anonymous survey which takes less than 5 minutes to complete.
Find us on Facebook
You can keep in touch with us on social media by following our Facebook page which you can find here.