PIPS inplea for premises

That’s a third of jobless younger people. It’s a shocking statistic which – allied to the fact that, in a year, around 200 people in the Province, many in their teens or twenties, actually do commit suicide – serves to underline the urgent need for services aimed at reducing the number of deaths, preventing self-harm, or helping the bereaved to cope with their loss. And yet a Larne group which is trying desperately to do all those things is homeless.

Since it was formed in 2007, PIPS Larne has searched in vain for suitable premises from which to deliver a service which has saved lives and cares for the loved ones of people who have committed suicide. The local grouping of the Public Initiative for the Prevention of Suicide is very grateful to Larne Elim Church for the use of its hall in which to hold family group support meetings on Tuesday evenings between 7.30-9.30pm. The rest of the time the group operates from members’ homes, including chairperson Carlee Letson and secretary Lorraine Lynn, with the help of treasurer Peter McAllister and Isobel Clugston.

“We have bits and pieces of equipment all over the place,” said Carlee. “We were given office equipment, which we can’t use because it’s stored in people’s garages or spare rooms. We have a telephone system and an engineer willing to install it free of charge, but we have nowhere to put it.”

PIPS Larne does operate a helpline 24 hours a day and seven days a week, but the group can’t have a free 0800 service and lists instead a mobile number (07530 797 716).

“Anybody who rings us in need of help, we ring them back straight away,” Carlee explained, “but it’s a very expensive way of operating.”

PIPS finds itself at the epicentre of a vicious circle: if it could obtain premises it could help more people while generating the finding required to cover costs including rent and phone bills; but without an office, or drop-in centre, the registered charity is disadvantaged in tracking down the grants that would otherwise be available.

“We’ve been to the council and the Housing Executive, but they have both said they can’t offer us anything,” Carlee said.

PIPS perseveres and has succeeded in drawing down funding from the North Antrim Community Network for its weekly family group support meetings for people who have been bereaved through suicide.The Lottery’s Awards For All scheme will also fund community training days.

Carlee’s reasons for helping to found PIPS Larne are personal, having lost a brother, grandfather, an uncle and a close friend to suicide. She said: “There was nowhere for people like me to go in Larne”.

Lorraine, a qualified counsellor in mental health issues, said the need for PIPS in Larne should not be underestimated. “We respond immediately, generally within the hour, to anybody who calls and is in need of our help,” she explained.

“We see people who are in the very depths of despair, whether they are talking of suicide, or self-harm, or people who have been bereaved by suicide. There are problems with addiction, depression and loneliness. People who feel they have no one else to turn to because of a lack of family support.”

It is not possible to quantify the good that PIPS Larne has achieved with its very limited resources, but the group deals presently with up to 20 calls a week and as Carlee said: “If we have only saved one life it’s worth it.”

Appealing for the chance to establish a base from which to organise and deliver the urgently-needed PIPS service in Larne and Moyle, Carlee pleaded: “If we just had a room to use as an office, it would be a start.”

n Two events have been organised to raise funds for PIPS Larne. The first is a dance at the Ballylumford Club on June 18 and the other is a charity football match at Inver Park featuring a Belfast Suicide Aware team against Larne Football Club.