Date: Tuesday 2nd June  

Time: 1:30-3:00pm  

Online via a Microsoft Teams Meeting

  

This event will involve conversation about supporting people experiencing suicidality.   

In this online event, we are excited to host Iona MacTaggart from Living Warriors and Jess Worner from the National Suicide Prevention Alliance to share their experiences and knowledge about peer support and suicide with a focus on the role of lived and living experience in this space.

How the event will run  

During the first 45 minutes, members of the Discovering Liveability team will host a conservation with Jess and Iona who will share their insight and experiences about peer support and suicide. In the final 30-40 minutes, we will have a Q&A where attendees can share their reflections and ask questions.   

How to attend 

You will receive details for a Microsoft Teams meeting via email after you register (for free). If you'd prefer to receive a meeting link without registering or have any problems with registering, please email us: discoveringliveability@ed.ac.uk   

Speaker bios:  

Iona MacTaggart, Living Warriers   

I am the co-organiser of Living Warriors Project, which is a peer support project based in Edinburgh for survivors of attempted suicide. We are a small grassroots group that is run for and by people who have survived suicide attempts. I am a person with many different experiences, both 'professional' and 'personal', which all blend together to shape my understanding of lived experience and suicide. What is most important to me is that the nuanced and diverse voice of suicide attempt survivors is a part of the conversation within suicide. The grounding of all my work is empathy and the appreciation that my voice is only one of many- I aim to amplify the collective voice of suicide attempt survivors- embracing both similarities and differences.   

 Jess Worner, National Suicide Prevention  

Jess Worner is the Lived Experience Network Manager for the National Suicide Prevention Alliance (NSPA). She has personal lived/ living experience of suicidality, self-harm, and of using mental health services. Jess works closely with people with lived and living experience to influence change and helps organisations think about meaningful ways of working collaboratively with people who have lived experience.    

She is particularly interested in leaning into nuance and plurality of perspectives, taking a social justice approach to how we see suicide, and ensuring the least heard voices are amplified and centred.  Before joining the NSPA, Jess has long a background in leading lived experience involvement, co-production and peer support programmes, including within mental charity Together for Wellbeing. She has also worked and volunteered with homelessness charities, is involved in community-led LGBTQ groups in her local area of Weymouth, and enjoys cold-water swimming, weight-lifting and poetry (not usually at the same time).