Hold the Hope

 

🩷 Making Suicide Awareness Everyone’s Business through the arts

💚 A creative approach to upskilling using lived experience voices

Hold the Hope offers suicide awareness through a lived experience lens with clinical assurance from SWLSTG NHS MH Trust

 

Part 1 : The Hold the Hope film

In 2023 six dedicated volunteers with personal experience of suicide created a compelling film, Hold the Hope, aimed at breaking the silence surrounding suicide. Drawing from their own lived experiences, the film serves as a catalyst to spark open, honest conversations about suicide, while empowering others with the insights they’ve gained from their own journeys.

The volunteers, the co-founders of the Hold the Hope film, comprised individuals who have either faced suicidal thoughts, cared for someone in crisis, or experienced the profound loss of a loved one to suicide. Their courage and commitment are at the heart of Hold the Hope, as they strive to break down barriers, raise awareness, and inspire hope.

One of the volunteers, Lee, reflected on his involvement:“I’m fortunate enough to have survived my suicide attempts. I felt drawn to this project to help shine a light on the despair that many people feel when they’re suicidal, and to show that there is a way forward – even in the darkest of times.

"I hope the film opens up conversations about suicide, helping those affected to feel unashamed, free from stigma, and embraced with understanding. Working on Hold the Hope has been an honour and a humbling experience. I’m stronger today for being part of it. If this film saves even one life, we’ve done our job.”

 

Part 2 : Hold the Hope Suicide Awareness Sessions

In 2024, the Hold the Hope film became part of suicide awareness sessions being delivered in person to mental health service delivery professionals and volunteers, universities, schools, community and voluntary organisations, police, medics and other organisations across South West London and beyond. The sessions are delivered by one of the project’s co-founders Jo Lambert, alongside Consultant Nurses Justine Trippier and Sonia Sandhu and senior clinician Lucia Kendall.

Justine Trippier says:

“There has never been a more important time to talk about suicide. Many of us, about 1 in 5, experience suicidal thoughts, but those thoughts can be interrupted. Simple actions – like speaking openly and compassionately – can make all the difference when someone is in crisis.

"Hold the Hope is about learning how to support others who may be struggling and not being afraid to use the word 'suicide.' I am incredibly grateful to our lived-experience volunteers for their honesty, bravery, and willingness to share their stories to inspire hope and help others."

You can watch the Hold the Hope suicide awareness trailer here:

Hold the Hope is part of the trust's co-produced 2024-27 Suicide Prevention Strategy. which the co-founders of the Hold the Hope project helped to draft.  The Hold the Hope film was commissioned by NHS South West London’s Suicide Prevention Programme and is supported by the London Mental Health Transformation Board, which provides regional leadership in improving mental health services.

 

Part 3 : Making Suicide Awareness Everyone's Business Through the Arts

The Hold the Hope film has a spoken word voiceover which is written in a survivor’s voice.  It depicts the moment of crisis and advocates for what might be needed at a time of suicidality.  As one of the group says in the trailer above, “When that poem was in front of us, we looked at each other and said, this is it, this is our narrative”.

In 2025, using the words of the Hold the Hope poem, the Hold the Hope song was launched on 10^th September, World Suicide Prevention Day, at the SWLSTG NHS MH Trust AGM. 

 

You can find out more about the Hold the Hope song here:

 

How do we make suicide awareness everyone’s business?  The arts can be a powerful medium for communicating an important and impactful message around a challenging topic.

Hold the Hope makes suicide awareness everyone's business using the voices of those who are surviving active suicidality through the arts. The Hold the Hope film uses poetry and music, and some of the co-founders feature in the film modelling how to support someone in a crisis. The poetry and music were created by two of the co-founders.

The Hold the Hope song, using the words of the Hold the Hope poem, sung by volunteers, is the beginning of a musical and artistic HOPE anthology.

More versions of the Hold the Hope song are planned, as many musical versions as possible, for example rap, hip-hop, garage, jazz etc with the ardent wish that people will hear HOPE in a way that is meaningful for them.

Hold the Hope is also represented in freestyle dance, by a local dance teacher who had not heard the song before and performed an authentic first response to the choral piece.

 

You can watch Hold the Hope in dance here:

The ethos of Hold the Hope 

At the heart of the Hold the Hope project is cultural humility and the potential for addressing health inequalities by upskilling as many parts of our community in how to support someone in crisis. We believe that by making suicide awareness everyone’s business through the arts, more people might feel that meaningful support is available and accessible, that they matter and that the HOPE can always be held.

You can read the Hold the Hope pledge drafted by the co-founders of Hold the Hope here.

You can support the hold the Hope team with the delivery of their training and strategy by making a donation here.

For enquiries about the project, or to arrange a Hold the Hope suicide awareness session, please get in touch with Jo Lambert at hello@holdthehope.co.uk .

For support with suicidal thoughts and active suicidality, please click here.

You matter. 🩷 💚