FACULTY FOR THE PSYCHOLOGY OF OLDER PEOPLE
VIRTUAL CONFERENCE21 - 22 JUNE 2021, VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
Professor Siobhan O'Neill
Siobhan O’Neill is a Professor of Mental Health Sciences at Ulster University, and Interim Mental Health Champion for Northern Ireland. Her research programmes focus on trauma mental illness and suicidal behaviour in Northern Ireland, and the transgenerational transmission of trauma.
She is now on a mission as the Mental Health Champion to improve the mental health of the people of NI by promoting evidence-based services and care for those who suffer from mental illness and suicidal thoughts.
As Interim Mental Health Champion for Northern Ireland, she will advise and assist in the promotion of mental health and wellbeing though all policies and services throughout the province. Her role is as a public advocate for mental health, and to be a voice for those otherwise voiceless. Her goal is to communicate the collective voices of people with lived experience and their families and carers, and to advocate for communities impacted by mental health inequalities.
'Preventing suicide and suicidal suffering in older people'
Meeting the mental health needs of our ageing population is an important challenge. Suicide and suicidal suffering in older people are important public health problems that rarely get the attention they deserve. In many countries the rates of suicide are highest in older age groups and there appears to be significant under reporting and a lack of accurate data on the issue.
In this keynote Professor O’Neill will discuss the theoretical frameworks that are helpful in understanding suicidal behaviour and the psychological factors associated with suicidal thoughts. The evidence on the factors impacting on suicidal behaviour in older people will be considered specifically. She will discuss the current evidence on the components of effective individual suicide prevention interventions, such as safety planning approaches, and outline how they would be applied to this population.
Suicide prevention is everyone’s responsibility, and there are many factors relating to stigma, ageism and society’s view of older people generally that influence how older people view themselves. Strategic approaches are necessary to create real and sustained change to the underlying difficulties that lead to preventable suffering. The keynote will end with a reflection on how we can build a society that values the contribution of older people, and the universal interventions that when applied to whole populations can influence suicidal thoughts and behaviours in this group.
FPOP 2021
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