Lead supervisor:
Prof Alyson Rees 
Start date: October 2020
Award: Collaborative
Subject Pathway:
Social Care, Social Work and Social Policy
Thematic Cluster:
Society and Well-Being Cluster
In partnership with:
Health and Care Research Wales 
Learning lessons: Informing suicide prevention from a documentary analysis of Child Practice Reviews and Adult Practice Reviews
Suicide is a devastatingly prevalent public health issue and a key area of preventable death. Studies suggest that a large proportion of individuals who go on to attempt or complete suicide have had contact with services in the preceding year (Slater et al. 2015). This could be explained by the risk of suicide associated with social circumstances faced by individuals in need of services such as social deprivation, mental ill health and substance abuse (Slater et al. 2015). Additionally, suicidality is a source of considerable anxiety for practitioners (Slater et al. 2015; Briggs et al. 2017). Therefore, more research must utilise available sources to explore how services can be better informed to protect vulnerable people at risk of suicide.
When a vulnerable child or adult in Wales dies by suicide, a multi-agency practice review is commissioned to explore the lessons that can be learned from the case primarily with the view of mitigating future incidents. To date, there has been no comprehensive attempt to systematically review all Child Practice Reviews (CPRs) and Adult Practice Reviews (APRs) where a probable suicide death has occurred. Therefore, this project will utilise these valuable sources of data and explore how services can be better informed to protect vulnerable people at risk of suicide. The project will adopt a qualitative approach, combining a thematic analysis of documentary data with interviews with key stakeholders.