A mental health nurse hopes to offer helpful insights into what more can be done to prevent suicides in British agriculture by embarking on an international study tour, sponsored by the Yorkshire Agricultural Society.
Lucia Slack has been awarded a prestigious Nuffield Farming Scholarship to study ‘Addressing Suicide in Agriculture: Supporting and Preventing the Biggest Hidden Danger Today’.
Since 1980, farming charity the Yorkshire Agricultural Society has sponsored Nuffield Farming Scholarships which provide the opportunity to study and travel abroad, meet like-minded people and explore cutting edge developments in the agricultural industry.
Allister Nixon, CEO of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society said: “Supporting the health and wellbeing of the farming community is a key priority of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, and so I am delighted that the Society is sponsoring Lucia to study such an important topic that I hope the wider industry will benefit from.”
Lucia works as an NHS mental health nurse in rural Cumbria and lives on a farm where her husband Johnny is a first-generation dairy farmer in the Eden Valley.
She said:
“I have both personal and professional experience of how stressful the agricultural industry can be. I wanted my Nuffield Scholarship to focus on suicide in agriculture because it’s such a big problem.
“Three people a week die by suicide in agriculture. With my background, I really hope to be able to positively influence the industry by exploring effective ways to prevent suicide and promote mental health in agriculture.
"I am truly thankful for this opportunity, made possible by the Yorkshire Agricultural Society.”
Her studies will take her to countries where there are high suicide rates within the agricultural industry, such as India and China. She will scrutinise successful programs that have tackled mental health and wellbeing, focusing on peer support, community engagement, and reducing stigma around mental health.
Lucia also hopes to visit Australia where a Minister for Mental Health has been appointed, Japan where psychological therapy is not covered by health insurance, the USA where a rural mental health conference takes place in Alaska, New Zealand where the industry is supported by a large number of farming charities, and Sweden, where digital tools are being used to make a difference.
Lucia believes that the UK’s key challenges to addressing suicide in agriculture include raising awareness of support to the “hardest to reach”, better equipping allied industry professionals to support farmers they are in direct contact with and tackling the stigma around talking about mental health.
She said:
“There are lots of amazing services out there. I want to understand what the UK is already doing well and highlight it, but also explore how we can target the market that we aren’t reaching?
"How can we make people more aware of the support that is out there? I want to learn what approaches are being used to achieve this.”
In the UK, charities such as The Farming Community Network, the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution, Addington Fund and Samaritans offer dedicated emotional support to farmers.
In Yorkshire, these charities, and other organisations are brought together by the Yorkshire Agricultural Society’s Yorkshire Rural Support Network, which promotes and provides sources of emotional, medical, practical and financial help to those who live in farming.
The Yorkshire Agricultural Society is also part of a consortium of organisations that is delivering a two-year support program to boost the health and wellbeing of farmers and rural communities in the North of England.
This is being funded by £150,000 from the DEFRA Farmer Welfare Fund and is being delivered alongside The Farmer Network, Upper Teesdale Agricultural Support Services and Field Nurse.
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