Our suicide prevention campaign ‘Check In With Your Mate’ has been shortlisted for a top award. 
It has been announced that our male-focused campaign, which launched in May 2022, has made the shortlist for the prestigious Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Excellence Awards 2023, in the ‘Health and Wellbeing Campaign’ category.
The winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on Wednesday June 28th.
The Check In With Your Mate campaign, which builds on the Partnership’s national award-winning staff suicide prevention campaign ‘Check In’, aims to normalise the conversation around suicide and mental health, particularly among men.
The campaign saw the creation of a series of communication assets which remain available for all to download, use and share, to help spread the word and encourage people to talk about mental health and suicide with the men in their life at home, in the community and at work.
It follows Office for National Statistics (ONS) data which shows suicide is more common in West Yorkshire than in England as a whole, with significantly more men taking their own lives than women.
The campaign also links to credible sources such as the life-saving Zero Suicide Alliance training and signposts to local support on this website via the shortcut web address: www.checkinwithyourmate.co.uk.
Messages on the campaign resources include:
- Is your sporty mate suddenly off his game?
- Does your mate always want to have one too many?
- Does your mate get down when he can’t see his kids grow up?
- Has your mate left service but he’s still fighting?
Developed with local men and built from their experiences, the resources can be used publicly in various places – in person and virtually.
In the first month of the campaign’s launch, analysis showed there were 860 posts on social media using the hashtag #CheckinWYM, reaching a total audience of 1.6m people.
Targeted advertising on Facebook and Instagram resulted in 4,023 clicks to the ‘support in your area’ section of our website in those first four weeks alone.
Of those who engaged with that advertising, 67 per cent were male and nearly half of those were aged 35-44 – a target age group of the campaign.
Reducing suicides is one of West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership’s ten year ambitions.
Please continue to download and use the resources at www.staffcheck-in.co.uk/males