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Mum of teen who took his own life: Community is not doing enough on suicide prevention
Michelle Leigh urged more work in suicide prevention following a Downing Street reception to speak about the Trust named for her late son Oli
The mother of a teenager who took his own life almost four years ago has told Jewish News: “I don’t think the Jewish community and Jewish schools are doing enough” to help with suicide prevention.
Michelle Leigh was speaking after a prestigious Downing Street reception to talk about the work of the Oli Leigh Trust, which she chairs, and set up after the loss of her son.
To date the Trust has raised £100,000 which it uses to give grants to small charities working in the fields of mental health and suicide prevention.
Mrs Leigh told the 80 guests at the reception, granted by Chancellor Rishi Sunak, that her 16-year-old son Oli was someone of great potential, who had represented Great Britain at the Maccabiah Games as the Futsal goalkeeper in 2017, and was the “go-to” person for many of his friends.
Tragically, however, she said that Oli “struggled to share his own emotions in the way his friends shared theirs with him… [neither] Oli’s school [nor] his doctors were able to provide any support.
They didn’t know of anywhere I could get him counselling or coaching to help him with his mental wellbeing. I discovered that the people we rely on to assist us in a crisis simply weren’t aware of any suitable training to help our children”. She said that in schools, a day’s programming was of little use, particularly if a teenager had felt unable to cope on that day and had not attended school. “Training in suicide prevention and mental health well-being needs to be ongoing and easily available”.
Mrs Leigh said that the Trust, set up in her son’s memory, had “a mission to prevent our current and future generations from taking their lives. We know we cannot stop suicides, but what we can do is help to reduce them by funding free training into prevention”.
This year the Trust received 30 applications from small mental health and well-being charities. Additionally there is an Oli Leigh online shop, among whose best-sellers are a specially created craft lager and a children’s story book.
It is also planned to launch the Oli Leigh Legacy Programme, providing funding for a package of wellbeing and prevention talks and training. And a new programme is being hatched, for Change-makers, to support young people across age groups from 14-24, in development of accreditation on suicide prevention, in tandem with other charities.
Mrs Leigh concluded: “I am standing here today to make a difference to our children’s futures. We want to reduce the rate of teenage suicides and provide them with the training they need to see that they do have a future, to help teenagers see through the fog.”
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