NAViGO Community Interest Company

NAViGO has a membership structure giving voting rights to staff, service users and carers as well as community representatives who support decision-making at board level.

The key objective of NAViGO is to “deliver services that we would be happy for our own family to use”.

How does your organisation contribute to preventing suicide and supporting those affected by it?

We have developed a research project embedding an evidence-based model for suicide prevention across the organisation.
This has involved several key components relevant to suicide prevention:

– Training all clinically qualified staff to make objective decisions about suicide risk using a bespoke suicide risk triage system.

– Implementing a 4-tier real-time supervision structure to support such decision-making.

– Enhancing clinician confidence through the supervision hierarchy, training all Crisis/Hospital Liaison team clinicians to use the RCT evidence-based

– Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS) framework to assess and manage life-threatening behaviours.

– Qualitative interviews with service users to gather key information regarding the CAMS process to improve services for individuals expressing suicidality.

With an open-access 24/7 Crisis services that responds without delays, anyone expressing suicidality (not just mental-health service users) is able to access support when they need it.
NAViGO members are also an integral part of the local Suicide Prevention Steering Group and chair the Crisis Care Concordat to support appropriate pathways to care for service users presenting with suicidal behaviours.

NAViGO also offer a range of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) approved evidence-based therapies including Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, including immediate access to treatment for those presenting with severe risk of suicide.

What are your current priorities?

Evaluation of the CAMS project and its impact on suicide rates, including academic publications and dissemination at conferences

Continue to gather feedback from clinicians working with high clinical risk cases and enhance clinician confidence, including support for staff that have been affected both personally and professionally by suicide

Work alongside other organisations to deliver a co-ordinated approach to suicide prevention as per national guidance

Men’s health and suicide risk – completed a review of the barriers to help-seeking for men experiencing suicidality (in publication)

The evaluation of the local self-harm pathway to ensure the diagnostic and biopsychosocial assessment processes in place are available for each presentation and lead to the provision of a tailored support and care plan including evidenced treatments

What challenges are you currently facing?

No dedicated service available locally to support those bereaved/affected by suicide – this is one of the priority areas of the regional Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) and is in development

Real-time surveillance and suicide risk reduction for individuals outside of mental health services – working with the local coroner to identify the demographic and clinical characteristics of such cases and develop services accordingly, particularly for those cases where help-seeking does not occur and how to ensure we identify any barriers to care or health awareness/promotional inputs that may address this problem