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Suicide Bereavement Services

Compassionate support for people bereaved or affected by suicide. Delivered by staff who understand because they’ve been there.

Contact the Leeds Mind suicide bereavement services:

(Open Monday – Thursday 9am – 5pm, and Friday 9am – 4:30pm)

0113 305 5800 (Leeds Mind reception)

The Leeds Mind Suicide Bereavement Services offer a safe space to talk and get practical guidance.

Anyone can use our services. For example, if you:

  • Have lost anyone to suicide, such as: a friend, colleague or family member; someone you know professionally or an acquaintance
  • Think someone ended their own life, even if an inquest has not been held or did not determine suicide as cause of death
  • Have been affected by suicide but do not identify as bereaved, e.g. if you witnessed a death
  • Were affected by a suicide months, years or decades ago

Our Suicide Bereavement team. “We get it because we’ve been there.”

We offer Suicide Bereavement Support in Bradford, Calderdale, Craven, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield.

Ways to get suicide bereavement support

One-to-one

If you’re accessing support as an individual, you’ll be assigned a suicide bereavement practitioner who has lived experience of loss by suicide. Through six one-hour sessions, you’ll have the space to talk and explore your feelings, as well as getting practical support.

As a group

You might have experienced loss as a group of friends, or part of a community group. You can receive support as a group with a postvention practitioner, to help you talk to and support each other.

At work

If you lose a colleague, we can offer suicide bereavement support to a workplace. This can include group bereavement support, training, resources and signposting.

As a family

In Kirklees and Leeds we offer whole family support. This means that a parent or carer can benefit from one-to-one support, and the whole family, including children, can have sessions as a group.

In Bradford, Calderdale, Craven and Wakefield, we can also help support the whole family more indirectly. Get in touch for details.

In school, college or uni

If an education institution (such as a school, college or university) experiences a loss by suicide, it can be helpful to offer support to students, staff and your wider community. We can offer group bereavement support and training to help staff manage the situation. We can also offer resources and signposting to more services.

Other support

Self support information – we always start with trusted and established resources, such as ‘Help is at Hand’, ‘Finding the words’ and ‘Is What I’m Feeling Normal?

Events and courses – See also our events programme and our latest courses listed below.

Our events

We hold monthly support groups (both online and face-to-face), as well as special, one-off events. Previous one-off events have included workshops to help you plan self-care around significant dates and anniversaries, and a family-friendly visit to the Donkey Sanctuary.

These events are for clients of the Suicide Bereavement Services. This is a great opportunity to be part of a community that understand because they have also experienced a loss through suicide.

Click below to see our calendar for January – March 2024.

Events programme Jan - Mar 2024

Our courses

Living with My Loss

A 6-week structured mental health and bereavement course to support young people aged 10-20 who have experienced traumatic and sudden bereavement through their loss and subsequent grief and distress.

It aims to validate feelings, increase understanding of grief, develop coping strategies and improve overall mental wellbeing.

To book on the course or for more information please email sbs@leedsmind.org.uk or call 0113 305 5800

You don’t have to identify as “bereaved”

Sometimes, people can be affected by suicide, but do not identify as being ‘bereaved’. This can include:

  • Witnessing a death by suicide
  • Having an acquaintance or someone from your past die by suicide
  • Being exposed to a suicide through work; for example, as part of an emergency response team

This experience can be very difficult and upsetting. Please do get in touch if you have been impacted by suicide in this way.

How to access our Suicide Bereavement Support

If you’re interested in receiving support for yourself, please select ‘refer yourself’. You can also call us or email if you’d like a chat about how the service works first.

We also take professional referrals (e.g. from doctors or other health professionals). If you are a professional referrer, please select the ‘professional referrals’ button below.

Latest news

All the latest news and opinion from the Leeds Mind Suicide Bereavement Services teams.

About our services

The Leeds Mind Suicide Bereavement Services are made up of:

  • Leeds Suicide Bereavement Service – Run by Leeds Mind and Leeds Survivor Led Crisis Service, with funding from Leeds City Council
  • West Yorkshire Suicide Bereavement Service – NHS England has provided funding for a suicide bereavement service across West Yorkshire. The project is run by Leeds Mind and informed by the Leeds Suicide Bereavement Service.