Dr. Philip Dodd:

I agree with the Deputy that it is important to support any educational initiative that enables individuals to develop resilience, be they children, young people or adults, but that is the message. The counter argument to sensationalist or negative messages on suicide and self-harm is as follows. We know that positive stories in literature about recovery have an impact in reducing levels of self-harm. Therefore, it is not good to consider narrowly the prevalence of self-harm on a dashboard that indicates the impact of a message. There is the so-called Papageno effect, by which means a prominent message of recovery has a positive impact on levels of presentation at hospitals. One can argue that is a very blunt indicator. However, when one argues for public messages and education programmes, personally, I argue more for a positive message of recovery, rather than sensationalising and giving detailed accounts of episodes of self-harm. I get that there is tension between freedom of speech or freedom of the press and the importance of social responsibility.