A student has told you they are suicidal

Usually at the end of a lesson, in a corridor, or in the last two minutes of a meeting about something else. Rarely at a convenient moment.

The first thing

Do not react with alarm. Whatever your face does in the next two seconds is the thing they will remember and the thing that decides whether anyone else in that school ever gets told.

Calm is not the same as unmoved. Thank you for telling me. I'm glad you did is the right opening, and it is available to you before you have any idea what to do next.

Do not promise to keep it secret

This is the mistake that does the most damage, and it is nearly always made out of kindness.

If a pupil says promise you won't tell anyone, the answer is not yes, and it is not a lecture about safeguarding. It is:

"I can't promise that, because if you're in danger I have to make sure you're safe. What I can promise is that I'll tell you who I'm going to talk to, and why, before I do it."

Said early, that holds. Said after you have promised secrecy and then broken it, nothing holds.

What to ask

• How long has it been like this?
• Are you thinking about acting on it? — direct, and it does not plant the idea
• Is there something happening at the moment that has made it worse?
• Who else knows?
• What would help right now?

Then stop talking. The silence is where the answer comes from.

What not to do

• Do not investigate. You are not conducting an inquiry, and pressing for detail can make a distressed young person shut down.
• Do not ask how. If they volunteer method detail, do not pursue it, do not repeat it, and do not include it in your written record beyond what safeguarding requires.
• Do not minimise. "Everyone feels like that at your age" ends the conversation and the relationship.
• Do not make it about the disclosure being difficult for you.

Handing it on

You are almost certainly required to pass this to the designated safeguarding lead, same day. Do it — but do it in a way that does not feel to the pupil like being reported.

Tell them, in front of them, what you are doing: I'm going to speak to [name] today, because they're the person who can actually get you some help. I'll tell you tomorrow what happens next.

Then actually tell them tomorrow. The follow-up is the part that gets skipped and the part that determines whether they ever disclose again.

Write it down the same day: what they said, in their words where you can, what you did, who you told, when. Factual, no interpretation, no diagnosis.

Afterwards

Expect them to be awkward with you. Having said something enormous, most young people spend the next week wishing they had not. Behave completely normally. Do not give meaningful looks.

Keep the low-level contact going. A nod, a normal comment about their work. The signal is that they have not become a problem in your eyes.

Tell someone yourself. You have just absorbed something heavy and schools routinely support pupils well and staff not at all. Your safeguarding lead should be checking on you; if they do not, ask.

Supporting someone who is suicidal → · What to say when you can't find the words →