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Jane Powell, director of the Campaign Against Living Miserably
Jane Powell, director of the Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm). Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
Jane Powell, director of the Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm). Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

Campaign warns against deathly silence on suicide

This article is more than 12 years old
Mary O'Hara
Jane Powell, the head of a suicide prevention charity wants to get everyone talking about the biggest killer of young men in the UK

The deaths of young men in car accidents or from knives or guns attract intense media scrutiny, as well as attention from politicians, but it is suicide that is the biggest killer of young men in the UK.

In 2010, there were 4,532 suicides recorded in England and Wales alone, of which 3,421 (75%) were males. For men between the ages of 15 and 34 there were 868 deaths by suicide, more than three times the number of women in the same age group, and there are fears that the worsening recession will trigger a sharp rise in men taking their own lives.

"You can't be a guy and talk about needing help," says Jane Powell, founder and director of the Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm), which aims to reduce the high suicide rate among young men. "This is why it's really a gender issue. There is no ducking this. To ask for help is seen as being a female thing. These things happen to women but it doesn't explain why three-quarters of all suicides are male.

"If we are going to look at suicide prevention, it is pointless unless we also talk about gender," she adds. "We have to look at why they are not accessing help. They are not accessing help because it's not put to them in the right way and because they don't think they should. There needs to be no shame in asking for help."

Calm runs a national helpline that around 2,000 young men ring each month to get confidential help and it has a website that provides an interactive support network. The charity recently launched a high profile in-store campaign with Top Man that featured famous DJs talking about suicide and the importance of speaking out, along with posters across London proclaiming: "The silence is killing us." The aim is to push the issue of suicide and young men into the national psyche.

"I see no reason why Calm can't be as big as the breast cancer campaign, only working with music, not fashion, and aimed at saving the lives of young men," says Powell.

With research clearly identifying a link between suicide and the job insecurity and unemployment that economic recession brings, Powell is aware of the campaign's timeliness. The helpline has been receiving more calls from men who feel increasingly vulnerable about losing their jobs, she says, so now is a good time to encourage vigilance.

Deeply shocking

"We did a YouGov poll [in November 2010] and it showed that nine out of 10 people haven't a clue that suicide is the biggest killer of young men. [The unawareness is] deeply shocking. Awareness is even worse among young men themselves," she says.

"I think a lot of parents are furious to find out that suicide is such a big killer and that they weren't aware and therefore didn't have the opportunity to respond better."

Powell, 51, knew little about suicide when she launched Calm as a pilot in Manchester for the Department of Health in 1997. But she was a seasoned campaigner and got an advertising agency to help craft a communications theme around sport and music so it was clearly branded in a way that young men would relate to it. Radio stations gave away free airtime to promote the helpline, and nightclub owners distributed leaflets to clubbers. She approached the Manchester-based music promoter Tony Wilson, whose PR people helped with the launch. "He sat there, rolled a joint, looked at the artwork and said: 'Yeah what do you want? I'll help,'" she recalls.

Powell says young men were keen to take part in the pilot. "They were appalled that suicide was the biggest killer – they had no idea and they wanted to get involved."

She steered the pilot from a fledgling, government helpline in the north-west to a national suicide prevention campaign. Fifteen years on, Calm is now an independent charity with a national helpline, after she rescued it from closure by the Department of Health.

The way Powell reacted to the request to help shut it down in 2004 says a lot about how she had come to regard the issue. "I couldn't do it," she says. It was not as though young men were no longer taking their own lives in disproportionate numbers. In fact, she points out, the remit of Calm had been extended from men under 25 to include men up to the age of 34. She went to meet with the project's steering group. "I knew that I couldn't [close it] so I got blind drunk the night before. I turned up with the most monumental hangover and said that I would take it on as a charity."

Building the charity has been tough, and at times Powell wasn't sure it would survive. It has a handful of staff, around 50 volunteers and survives on a shoestring with funding mainly from Comic Relief, charitable trusts and a grant from National Rail for the website. It also works with primary care trusts in Merseyside, East Lancashire and north-west London to deliver Calmzones – working with youth clubs, music and community outlets to prevent suicide among young men. Since it has operated in Merseyside, suicide rates among young men dropped by 55% from 1999 to 2009 (a fifth more than the national decrease).

Strong message

Right now, Powell feels Calm has the potential to "punch above its weight". In the past few months, it has been concentrating on its poster and Top Man campaigns – with a strong message about the risks of suicide – directed at its hard-to-reach target group of men under 35. The only way to get around the lack of awareness, Powell suggests, is "by going directly to the public and undertaking loudspeaker messages through billboards and bypassing the media". The Calm website is now a place where young men are content to spend time and "get directly involved", she says. They can submit videos, share experiences and, crucially, according to Powell, see that it's OK to talk.

Generating awareness is important because it is a necessary route to reducing the number of deaths, and ultimately Calm's mission is suicide prevention. However, for Powell, central to any strategy is fighting the stigma associated with men labelled as "weak".

Yet trying to change entrenched social attitudes and reduce the high number of deaths is a big ask – and Powell knows it. Nevertheless, she seems undaunted. This year she plans to drum up support for Calm within the sports world, develop its ties with DJs, and hopes to raise enough money from music events to expand its texting support service beyond London, and turn the helpline – which is available four nights a week – into a seven-day operation.

What matters most, Powell argues, is that young men access a message they can identify with. She says: "This was [always] a campaign for, of and about young men. The day we lose that is the day we stop being relevant."

Calm is at thecalmzone.net Calm helpline: 0808 802 5858 within London, or 0800 585858 outside London.

Curriculum Vitae

Age 51.

Lives Ryde, Isle of Wight.

Status Married, one daughter.

Education Ryde Convent; Ealing College of Higher Education, humanities BA Hons.

Career 2005-present: founder and director, Calm; 2000-04: career break; 1997-2000: national rollout co-ordinator of Department of Health's Calm pilot; 1992-2000: worked on a variety of events/campaigns for Power Inquiry, Charter 88, Greenpeace, Clear Communication, Family Rights Group, Low Pay Unit; 1990-92: head of campaign department, CND; 1988-90: membership officer, Charter 88; 1985-88: joint campaign co-ordinator, Peace Tax Campaign.

Interests "Anything I can do with my hands: cooking, DIY, sewing, gardening."

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