Skip to content
Need help now?Get help in United KingdomIn an emergency call 999Change country
Rise From The Edge
Get help now
Back

Suicide-safer school self-audit

Twenty questions about your school — not about any pupil. Answer as things actually are, not as the policy says they should be.

This scores your organisation, not any person in it. Every question is about a policy, a procedure or a provision — something you either have or do not have. Nothing here asks about an individual, and this site never produces a suicide risk score for a person.

0 of 16 answered

Saved on this device only. Nothing is sent anywhere, which is the point — an audit you have to file somewhere is an audit nobody answers honestly.

Before anything happens

  • Is there a written procedure for what to do if a pupil discloses suicidal thoughts?critical

    The alternative is that whoever hears it first invents a response under pressure.

  • Could someone find that procedure in under two minutes, right now, without asking?critical

    A procedure nobody can locate at the moment of need is not a procedure.

  • Is there a named person responsible, with a named deputy?critical

    A single point of failure who is on leave is the most common way a good process fails.

  • Does the procedure say what happens outside working hours?

    Crises are disproportionately out of hours, which is when most procedures stop.

  • Have the people most likely to hear a disclosure had training in the last two years?

    Not awareness-raising — training in what to say and what to do next.

  • Have the crisis numbers in your materials been checked against the provider's own page in the last year?

    Helplines renumber and close. A poster with a dead number is worse than a blank wall.

  • Is there a written plan for what the school would do in the 48 hours after a death?critical

    This is the one that has to exist beforehand, because nobody can write it on the day.

Pupils

  • Could a pupil name an adult in the building they would tell?

    If the answer is a role rather than a person, the answer is effectively no.

  • Is there a way to ask for help that does not involve speaking to anyone?

    A note, a form, a box. The pupils at highest risk are least likely to speak first.

  • When this is taught, does the teaching follow safe-messaging guidance rather than a resource someone found online?

    Well-meant lesson material is one of the more common sources of unsafe content.

  • Is there a handover of pastoral concerns at transition points and between year groups?

    Concerns routinely evaporate over a summer.

When something happens

  • Is the suicide procedure connected to safeguarding rather than sitting beside it?

    Two parallel processes means each assumes the other acted.

  • Is it written down when parents are told, and when they are not?

    Deciding this in the moment, under pressure, is how it goes wrong in both directions.

  • After an incident, is there a process for identifying pupils affected beyond the obvious friendship group?

    The most affected pupil is frequently not one anybody would have predicted.

  • Is there a position on memorials, benches and online tribute pages agreed in advance?

    These decisions are made in grief, are very hard to reverse, and carry real risk.

  • Is there support for staff, including the one who found out first?

    Schools routinely support pupils well and staff not at all.