Our Gloucestershire Self Harm Helpline provides a safe, supportive, non-judgemental and informative space for people who self harm, their friends, families and carers. We also speak to professionals who may want to know more about self harm.

The service is able to support anyone living within Gloucestershire, and you can contact the service by telephone, text or webchat during our opening hours, every day 5pm to 10pm. The helpline provides: confidential emotional support and information; support and understanding during a crisis; promotes coping strategies and self-management to help you work towards your recovery. We can also help put callers in touch with other organisations.

If you use the service, you can expect:

Up to 30 minutes of telephone support per evening
Up to 60 minutes of web chat support per evening
Up to 5 hours of text support per evening

All support will be from a trained mental health recovery worker. The helpline worker will listen to you, support you, provide options and ways of coping, give information of other places that can help if needed, and may access help for you if you need it (see below for more information on this).

The helpline worker will not give advice, diagnose, or tell anyone else what you talk about.

If you contact the service as a worried friend, carer, family member or professional, we can provide information on self harming (including reasons why people may self harm, and alternative methods of coping).

Calls to the helpline from landlines and some mobile networks (T-mobile, O2, 3, Virgin, Vodafone and Orange) are free; also for these networks, your call will not show up on the bill. However other mobile networks may charge and calls may show up on bills. Texts are charged at your usual network rate and, depending on your call plan, may be free.

We believe in respecting and maintaining your confidentiality. We will not share your personal information with others without your consent except in exceptional circumstances where there is a risk to yourself or others, or where we are legally obliged to do so. In these cases other agencies may be able to trace your call. If we need to break your confidentiality we will, where possible, tell you and explain the reasons why.

The helpline uses Language Line and Typetalk to enable callers who are hard of hearing or those whose first language is not English to access the service.

Alongside providing our helpline, our service also delivers workshops on self harm, aimed at professionals, family, friends and service users. Please email glosselfharm@rethink.org to find out more. We also work with a range of agencies and partners to reduce the stigma and discrimination faced by those affected by self harm in Gloucestershire.

Gloucestershire Suicide Prevention Partnership (GSPP) wants to train as many people as possible in the county to be able to identify when someone is having suicidal thoughts or showing suicidal behaviour, to help them to speak out in a supportive way, and to feel able to point the person towards to the correct services or support.

This is possible through the Zero Suicide Alliance online training course for anyone who wants to know more about how they can help someone who is suicidal. This takes around 20 minutes to complete and is completely free of charge.

The training covers how to help a stranger, a co-worker or a loved one. The course is called – ‘ Suicide Lets Talk’ and can be completed here - https://ww5.gloucestershire.gov.uk/staffnet/rel-uk/story_html5.html

Click here to download our service flyer

Click here to download our printable contact card

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