Уэльсийн хунтайж Уильям спортын салбарт сэтгэцийн эрүүл мэндийг дэмжих шинэ санаачилга эхлүүллээ

Editor’s note: The following article contains a discussion of suicide.

Early Thursday afternoon in Liverpool and, in the shadow of Hill Dickinson Stadium, the future king of England is sitting on the Gary Speed memorial bench.

Next to William, Prince of Wales, is his wife Kate but the heir to the throne is actually in deep conversation with the woman to his left. Carol Speed is Gary’s mother and, on the ‘talking bench’ Everton hope encourages people to speak about mental health, they are reflecting on her son’s legacy. The former Leeds, Everton and Newcastle midfielder, and Wales manager, took his own life in 2011.

To the Princess’ right sit John Billsborrow, a mental health support worker for Everton in the Community, and Sam, a young man who has been supported by the club’s charity. The wind sweeps in off the river but, on World Suicide Prevention Day, the four listen intently first as Carol tells her son’s story, then as Sam relays his own lived experiences.

It is a poignant moment on an important occasion.

William, royal patron of the Football Association and an Aston Villa fan, is visiting Merseyside to launch On Your Side, a suicide prevention toolkit for people in sport. With support from the Royal Foundation and organisations including the FA, Premier League, the British Olympic Association’s Team GB and British Cycling, the project seeks to equip people with the tools to speak about suicide, recognise the signs and have those conversations which save lives.

The On Your Side toolkit is framed in sporting language, couched to connect better with those it targets from amateur grassroots right up to elite level. The aim is to reach the broadest audience, given no one is immune from the impact of suicide. After all, sport has an almost unparalleled ability to talk to people, particularly some of those most at risk of taking their own lives.

“Six years ago, I stood at Goodison Park to talk about Heads Up,” William said. “That campaign set out to change the conversation around mental health through the power of football. It showed what sport can do when it uses its platform for such a purpose.

“Suicide remains one of the greatest challenges facing our society. Many people would have felt the impact of this personally. You will know families whose lives have been changed forever by loss. Today we remember them and we recommit ourselves to doing everything we can to prevent more families from experiencing the pain.

“Sport reaches people in ways that few other sectors can. Every week, hundreds of thousands of people walk through the gates of stadiums and arenas, millions will gather in clubhouses, sports halls, gyms and community centres.

“They play together, train together, watch together and support one another, building relationships that can last a lifetime. Sport creates belonging, it creates identity, it creates a connection, and those connections really matter.”

Developed in partnership with the UK’s national standards body, the British Standards Institution, and mental health charity Chasing the Stigma, the toolkit aims to shift the dial from awareness to meaningful support.

Organisations and sportspeople have come together behind the initiative, including England captain Harry Kane, Formula 1 driver George Russell, two-time Olympic gold medal-winning middle-distance runner Dame Kelly Holmes and Britain’s most successful female Olympian, cyclist Dame Laura Kenny.

Several featured in a short film aimed at encouraging people to have the confidence to start a conversation about suicide.

England football captain Harry Kane features in the short film promoting the toolkit (On Your Side)

Men, in particular, are vulnerable. The response when men say they are in distress is different, suggests Ann John, director of the National Centre for Suicide Prevention and Self-Harm.

“North Belfast, where I’m from in Northern Ireland, was the suicide capital of Europe at one point,” former world bantamweight and featherweight champion boxer Carl Frampton tells The Athletic. “People talk about ‘generational trauma’, and my wife has had family members who’ve passed away because of suicide. It seems, where I’m originally from, everybody has been affected in some way by suicide.

“I’m not ‘macho’ in the slightest. I’m very emotional. Boxing is sometimes seen as a bit of a thug sport, which it’s absolutely not — it does so much good for people.

“My old coach, Billy McPhee, was very proud of creating good fighters, but the boxing club was more than that. Billy described his job to me as a coach but also being almost like a counsellor or therapist of some sort without actually having any sort of training.”

The statistics are stark. According to the mental health charity Mind, one in four adults have thought about taking their own life. One in 13 have attempted suicide at some point. On average, someone will die by suicide in the United Kingdom every 90 minutes — the length of a football match. It is also the biggest killer of men under 50.

It can be difficult for people to talk openly about thinking of suicide, or for those who can offer support — friends, team-mates, coaches — to know where to start with a conversation. The toolkit aims to make that easier, to give people at all levels of sport the confidence and best practice to do so.

At its heart is a five-step framework, GOALS, for individuals to start a conversation: G – Get ready; O – Open the conversation; A – Ask the question; L – Listen and respond and S – Support and signpost.

“There was not one conversation during my career about mental health at all,” says Holmes, who has previously spoken openly of her experience with depression and self-harm and her own thoughts of suicide. “That caused me but also a lot of other high-profile sports people to lead a life of insecurities, negativity and vulnerability.”

That it is the future King launching this toolkit, she says, is “amazing, and he absolutely cares”, with his profile and platform helping to reach more people.

“Talking about mental health has been normalised in the past six or seven years, but talking about suicide hasn’t — this needs to (change),” she adds. “Sport should be positive, about health and wellbeing, achievement, feeling good and having fire in your belly. If you can combine humanising a conversation around mental health and suicide prevention, with the positivities of health, wellbeing and sport, that’s a great combination.

“If you think about the role of athletes, coaches, parents, officials, supporters, you may be in an environment where you notice people struggling. Collectively, these organisations coming together has to strengthen the message, the cause and support out there because you’ve got huge amount of people emphasising exposure and awareness.”

The Prince and Princess of Wales are joined by former sports stars at the launch of the On Your Side suicide prevention toolkit (Shirlaine Forrest/Getty Images)

At the launch inside Hill Dickinson Stadium, Mark Bullingham, chief executive of the FA, points out to the room that there are 22,500 clubs in England from elite to grassroots level. Clare Sumner from the Premier League talks of the “unique ability to reach people”, with 15million people going through top-flight stadiums every season, 35million watching it in the UK, and a worldwide audience of 1.9billion.

Those numbers illustrate the huge reach of sport and serve as evidence it has a part to play, with Kenny highlighting the need to focus on the person as well as the athlete.

“For a year when I was feeling at my lowest, after we (she and her husband, fellow Olympic cyclist Jason) lost two babies trying for our second child, sport really was my escape and it stopped me overthinking,” she tells The Athletic. “People don’t reflect on that because it’s not a shiny gold medal.

“This toolkit can help so many people. I can speak quite openly to anyone, but I know that’s not the case for lots of people. If you’ve recognised that somebody’s struggling, but you don’t know how to approach that conversation, this toolkit could just help massively to get the moment right.

“Being able to start that conversation is the hardest thing. When you’re talking about something so sad and extreme as suicide — even just saying that word, you don’t say it lightly — someone is really struggling and at the lowest of the low. We underestimate how much people rely on and are involved in the sporting world.”

While various organisations have their own approaches to dealing with mental health issues and suicide prevention, including the Premier League’s ‘Together Against Suicide” initiative launched last year, the toolkit pools knowledge and standardises approaches across sport at every level.

Awareness, it stresses, is key. As Kenny says, so is starting a conversation. But this is more than just directing people to speak. It seeks to equip everyone with the knowledge to spot signs, know what to say, how to say it and direct them towards the most effective way of handling situations which could lead to a person’s suicide.

As the Prince and Princess of Wales enter the Everton dressing room to speak with Jake Mills, who was heavily involved in designing the toolkit as the founder of mental health charity Chasing The Stigma, black and purple football shirts hang on the pegs bearing the ‘On Your Side’ logo.

A digital screen displays the toolkit, with Mills talking the royals through everything it offers.

Prince William speaks with Jake Mills, who helped develop the suicide prevention toolkit (Andrew Parsons/Kensington Palace)

The toolkit also features Martin Kray, who portrays one of two Norwich City supporters in the club’s ‘You Are Not Alone’ film produced for World Suicide Prevention Day in 2023, a piece that was widely praised for its impact.

“Sport gives people a sense of belonging. Whether it’s in the football stand or stewarding on a match day, looking out for one another matters,” says Kray.“This toolkit is a reminder that having a conversation can make a real difference and it gives us guidance on how to do that.”

For Kenny, the benefits are simple and obvious.

“When you are that low, these conversations are the hardest ones to have,” she adds. “The biggest goal here, the reason I want to back it, is because we are talking about saving someone’s life and people’s lives are worth fighting for.”

Whatever you’re going through, you can call the Samaritans any time, from any phone, on 116 123 (United Kingdom) or 1-800-273-TALK (United States).