There has been quite a growth in activity over the past twelve months for us in the office. Generally PAPYRUS is becoming known to more and more people working in health and education with a corresponding increase in the number of contacts we have recorded. There has been an increase of almost 34% over the year.

 

Once more there is a noticeable swing from letters to emails as more people are communicating electronically.  This was one of the reasons we decided to take up broadband access for the office. There are savings in time and further opportunities for electronic marketing which more than off-set the slight increase in costs.

 

With an increase in financial recording, largely due to the Big Lottery funding for the RaPSS research project and government funding for HOPELineUK, Denise agreed to work fulltime at the beginning of this year. This allowed us to also take on some funding applications and to increase the amount of marketing we were able to do. Most of this is done electronically. We now distribute the newsletter to a wider professional audience than previously.

 

Work on the helpline, HOPELineUK, gathered momentum around Easter as we were informed that the Department of Health was prepared to assist with funding the English proportion of the helpline. Start up costs had been covered by a grant from the Austin and Hope Pilkington Foundation. The management group reviewed the policies we already had in place to ensure that they were applicable to the helpline. The professional indemnity insurance was upgraded to cover the change in the service we would be offering. The majority of the increase in contacts over recent months, particularly the enormous increase in the number of emails, is due to requests for information about HOPELineUK.

In August, I met with

having the accounts and other company information accessible online.

 

The web site continues to attract over 2,000 visitors a month. The sharp rise we saw in September to almost 4,000 is probably due to the increase in our marketing for HOPELineUK. We are also responsible for the RaPSS website and there is an average of 400 visitors per month to that site too.

 

PAPYRUS continues to be involved in responding to consultation documents from NICE and from others concerned with mental health. We have representatives on suicide prevention groups in five of the eight NIMHE regions and have been involved in a wider Regional Prevention Group in the North West - which encompasses agencies such as DEFRA and Network Rail - in discussions on prevention issues.

 

The media have contacted us for a variety of reasons throughout the year, usually looking for someone who fits a particular set of criteria whom they can interview. More often than not we are able to provide them with useful information.

 

There is some concern about the future of the office in its present location. Despite verbal reassurances that there are no plans to ask us to vacate, we currently have no lease. The storage facility we are renting has given us space to move, free from boxes of leaflets and archive files, but is a short journey by car to replenish stocks or research old files. The management team will look at what our options are for the future to ensure security and good working practices are safeguarded.

Tony Cox  Coordinator

PAPYRUS  - a year on

representatives from the Scottish Executive Health Department, Choose Life and Breathing Space to discuss how HOPELineUK fits into the suicide prevention strategy for Scotland. Although we were not offered any financial help as their funding for this year has been allocated,  there is a possibility  this may be reviewed in the future.  Recently we have been contacted by the chairman of the Northern Ireland Taskforce on suicide prevention and have begun discussions on how PAPYRUS can help in prevention work there.

 

In recent weeks we learned that the Department for Education and Skills was prepared to meet the shortfall to cover the cost of the  HOPELineUK service for England. This means that, with the grant from the Department of Health, the fundraising efforts in the London Marathon, Nottingham half marathon, several charity walks in Scotland and donations from Wales, the funding for year one of the helpline has been met.

 

Some time has been spent on revising the text for the website. Every page has been looked at to see whether the text is current and appropriate. Some pages have been rewritten; others have needed minor alterations to ensure that the links are current. We have also run a trial for

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