PREVIOUS EVENTS / FUNDRAISING INITIATIVES
- 2003 to 2006 Coping with and Surviving Depression – Autumn evening lecture series
Open lecture series in Holiday Inn Dublin City Centre featured acclaimed contributors, Prof Kay Redfield Jamison (“An Unquiet Mind”) and Johnny McEvoy (Singer / Songwriter).
- 2003 Jimmy Magee Video 'Great Sporting Moments' part proceeds donated to The 3Ts.
RESEARCH
3TS CO-FUNDED RESEARCH
BIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL SUICIDE RESEARCH PROGRAMMES:
Prof Kevin Malone of SVUH & UCD and co-founder of The 3Ts, is undertaking a series of 3Ts co-funded leading edge psycho-biological suicide research studies. The first study examines the response of the body's immune system during an episode of suicidal depression, to try to identify early warning bio-markers for suicidal behaviour. The study proposes that suicidal despair is associated with inflammatory markers. An associated study focuses on the "living experience of suicidal depression", exploring psycho-biological tracings of suicidal despair over time.
The second study examines the effects of psychosocial stress on our genetic code (DNA), and its possible impact on risk for Suicidal Depression. This study will tell us more about how stress & the environment can affect our DNA code, and how this can possibly alter our DNA over the course of our life (and how this altered DNA code may be transmitted onto the next generation). This study will involve examining DNA collected from non-suicidal control subjects, suicide attempters, and first degree relatives of those who have died by suicide. Preliminary results should be available during 2013. As with other 3Ts co-funded research, it is hoped that the results of this innovative research will help inform future suicide prevention strategies and policies.
For further information about these studies, or should you wish to take part as a research subject, you can contact Prof Kevin Malone directly at k.malone@svuh.ie
ALL IRELAND SUICIDE SURVEY: Funded in large part by The 3Ts, a team of researchers led by Prof Kevin Malone of UCD & St Vincent's University Hospital conducted a countrywide Survey of lives lost to suicide in Ireland.
Overview: The team commenced in Autumn 2006 with the aim of probing behind the stark suicide statistics in Ireland, especially the data in relation to young lives lost to suicide in the past five years. Previously no research project had engaged with Irish families to learn about the lived lives lost to suicide. Rather our society has depended on dry and out of date national statistics which tell us very little about the lives lived and lost to suicide in communities countrywide. Put in context, suicide rates amongst Ireland’s youth are the fourth highest within the expanded European Union. Annually, depending on how national statistics are read, there are upwards of 580 suicide deaths in the Republic of Ireland (including Open Verdicts returned by Coroners). Over 120 of these deaths are of young people and it appears no community is spared.
Methods: The study has employed a case-control design (120 cases and 120 living community controls). The cases include suicide deaths, especially youths between 2003 - 2008. The controls include age, sex, region, and mental illness matched living community population. Families were invited to donate a story of the lived life of their loved one. The project received ethics’ approval from the St. Vincent’s Healthcare Medical Research Ethics Committee and informed consent was obtained from all families before they took part. In addition to the families interviewed, we also retrieved an additional 250 cases from the Coroners’ offices which augmented our database with regard to our suicide cohort.
The team interviewed over 250 relatives in 23 counties about over 100 young lives lost to suicide in the last 5 years.
Preliminary Emerging Themes: Initial examination of data must be interpreted cautiously as we have yet to factor in data from the living community controls. However, the following themes appear to be emerging from first pass analysis:
- Over 80% of the young deceased disclosed their suicide ideas “to someone” in two weeks prior to death.
- 40% of those were first attempt completers (i.e. that they had never made a previous suicide attempt).
- 70% of the cases coded for a diagnosable “mental illness”.
- Obvious and apparent gaps were identified in mental health services particularly for adolescents between sixteen and twenty years of age.
- Bullying and physical assaults appear possibly to be more common than would have been expected from a study of this kind.
- Alcohol was identified as a “significant factor” in one-sixths of the deaths.
- At least ten suicide clusters were identified accounting for over forty additional suicide deaths especially common amongst younger people.
- A concealed social gradient has been possibly identified (suicide risk appears significantly increased at the margins of society and in deprived communities).
- The Visual Arts Autopsy method is shedding additional new knowledge and understanding on the individual lived life.
An interim report was completed summer 2009, with the final report to be completed summer 2010.
For further information on participating in the Suicide in Ireland Survey, please contact Survey Co-ordinator, Suzanne O’Connor - Tel: 0861917734 or 01 2213355. Email: suzanne.oconnor@st-vincents.ie.
To date, in addition to 3Ts fundraising events, 3Ts has raised extensive funding support for the Survey from private individuals and businesses, such as Newstalk 106, Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, the Louis & Zelie Martin Foundation; local fundraisers such as the numerous events held in the Thurles area, participants in sporting events such as the Dublin City Marathon, the Flora Ladies Mini-Marathon, the Links Golf Society Golf Classic and more recently through our SPAR Charity of the Year Programme.
The Suicide in Ireland Survey also receives funding from The National Office For Suicide Prevention, The Ireland Funds, "Be Not Afraid", Padraig Harrington Foundation, National Lottery, Carphone Warehouse, Stafford Foundation and ESB Electric Aid.
For further information on the Survey, please contact Survey Co-ordinator, Suzanne O'Connor - Tel: 0861917734 or 01 2213355. Email: suzanne.oconnor@st-vincents.ie.
DUMP (The Disposal of Unwanted Medicines Properly project):
The Disposal of Unwanted Medicines Properly project is very practical initiative supported in part by 3Ts fundraising. DUMP is more than a research project. By collecting and ensuring the safe disposal and destruction of unused medicines, DUMP actively seeks to reduce the amount of deaths through overdose and accidental poisoning. Collection points for unwanted or unused medicines will be located at pharmacies. This potentially has very real benefits in terms of suicide prevention, child accident prevention, environmental protection as well as collecting valuable information on prescription and over-prescription patterns.
DUMP aims to:
- Reduce access to means of overdose;
- Reduce Accidental poisoning of children;
- Help Prevent the unused medicines entering into the environment.
10,000 Para suicide cases attended at A&E departments in Ireland in 2001, with medication overdose the method of choice for the majority of both men (64.3%) and women (83.1%).
Accidental poisoning in young children accounts for at least 3,000 attendances at A&E with 10% of accidental deaths in childhood due to poisoning, placing it second only to road traffic accidents. Over half of childhood poisoning queries to the National Poisons Information Centre related to poisoning with medication.
The disposal of unused medicines presents an additional problem. There is a widespread public belief that the correct method of disposal is to flush unwanted medicines into the waste stream but this brings with it huge environmental implications and this project will fund the correct disposal of such medicines.
All data will be examined in the light of national poisoning and suicide / para suicide statistics. In particular, the possibility of a correlation between the drugs employed in suicide / para suicide and the drugs that are unused / hoarded will be examined. The project will also endeavour to analyse correlation between medications prescribed and unused, trends in prescription practice and the cost of unwanted medicines to the Dept of Health.
A pilot project has been held in the South Western Area Health Board and in Phase 2 5 collections from 162 Pharmacies 5 collections to date yielded 7.26 tonnes of unwanted medicines. A similar scheme is to be launched in the Midlands region in early 2006. 3Ts believe that this project should be available countrywide.
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SUPPORT
3Ts fundraising regularly contributes to other voluntary organisations working in the area of Suicide Research, Intervention, Prevention or Support. Recent initiatives which have benefited from 3Ts funding include:
- All Ireland Suicide Survey
- Collin Project (Northern Ireland)
- Console: Centres in Clondalkin and Finglas and Seasons for Growth Programme for Schools & Colleges
- Living Life Counselling
- Parents Plus Programme in conjunction with Mater Foundation and Parents Plus Charity
- SpunOut.ie
- Teen-Line Ireland Helpline
- IASP International Conference Killarney August 07
€100,000 of funds raised in 2004 was presented by Padraig Harrington on behalf of 3Ts to a number of organisations involved in suicide research and prevention:
The funds raised by the 3T's have a very real impact on projects undertaken by these charities related to the research and prevention of suicide.
The Mater Foundation
The Mater Foundation received a donation of €10,000 which has been allocated to Professor Carol Fitzpatrick 's Child Guidance Clinic and has gone some way towards supporting young adolescents suffering from depression through its research project, “Working Things Out”. This project is currently piloting in selected Dublin schools within the Mater catchment area.
National Suicide Bereavement Support Network
The National Suicide Bereavement Support Network received a donation of €10,000 from the 3T's which has been allocated to the training of personnel in different areas of Critical Incident Stress Management. These individuals will be able to bring their acquired knowledge to their respective support groups and will improve the work they are already undertaking. The balance of the funds will contribute to nationwide seminars the group plan to host to explain de-briefing strategies
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POLITICAL LOBBYING:
Action on Suicide Alliance: 3Ts is a founding member of the Action on Suicide Alliance (see www.actiononsuicidealliance.ie) which lobbies Government for full funding and implementation of Government’s own strategies and reports including National Suicide Prevention Strategy and Vision for Change.
Action on Suicide Alliance Remembrance Procession: As a member of the Alliance, The 3Ts and supporters joined hundreds of others walking in silent protest from the Garden of Remembrance to Dail Eireann where 3Ts Chairman Noel Smyth joined Alliance Chairman John Saunders and others in meeting Government outlining the Alliance mandate for sufficient funding of existing Government Suicide Prevention strategies.
3Ts is continually contacting Ministers and TDs to put Suicide on the Irish political radar. Prof Kevin Malone in 2006 profiled the tragedy of Suicide to The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health & Children. Click here for transcript of Prof Malone's presentation.
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3TS ARTS PROGRAMME
21 Grams: 3Ts collaborated in June 2005 with artist Seamus McGuinness in presenting his artwork “21 Grams”– a piece inspired by high number of suicides in Ireland . “ 21 Grams” (the perceived weight of the human soul) is a powerful creation depicting in excess of 90 suspended men's white shirt collars. Each shirt weighs 21 grams, symbolising the aftermath of suicide, the reverence of life and living, the life lost, and the void left behind. Seamus displayed this thought-provoking piece of Art in collaboration with 3Ts at a recent Conference in Dublin Castle entitled “Joyce, Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry” and again at a very prestigious 3Ts fundraising event in Dublin Castle in April 08.
McGuinness speaks candidly about 21 Grams subject matter, Suicide, emphasising the human loss and tragedy it visits on those left behind and the fact that it affects the living and the dead. He also highlights the randomness of Suicide, the fact that suicide affects people from all walks of life.
Seamus McGuinness was born in Donegal and now resides in Co Clare. He is a lecturer in Textiles at GMIT, Galway. His work has been exhibited at a number of solo and collaborative exhibitions and he has also created a number of public and corporate commissions .
To view images of the '21 Grams' exhibition download PDF here (2MB).
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