Samaritans Cymru, the leading charity for crisis support and suicide prevention, recently published a new report, The Right Support At The Right Time? – Improving the availability and quality of support after self-harm in Wales, which brings together insights from people with lived experience of self-harm, stakeholders, service-providers and the general public to understand the support needs of people who have self-harmed and identify opportunities to improve the quality of support available.
The charity is calling for mental health support and therapies to be more easily accessible for people who have self-harmed, so that this support is available as an early intervention. The research found that people who have self-harmed in Wales are being excluded from services as they do not meet the criteria for mental health support. The consequence is that people are not being offered help at an early stage, which in turn leads to them experiencing more serious levels of distress and self-harming behaviours.