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| 39 www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE | 39 HEADSPACE & TIMING BY LT COL JOHN MARTIN, PSS Christmas Already! Christmas has come around fast this year, I'm sure you will all agree! Christmas is a good time for us all to remind each other of the need to take care of our mental health. There are a lot of things that we can do. The first is to make sure that we are in good physical condition – controlling our diet and our alcohol intake, as well as giving up smoking, all provide a good basis for good mental health. You should also make sure that you take care of any health worries that you might have in good time – Don't put things off. Taking action early reduces your worries and, in most cases, helps you to a better outcome. Planning your Christmas, and how you will spend your time over the break, is a good idea. You should aim to spend time with the people you really want to share your Christmas with - use the time together to really catch up and listen to what's really going on in each other's lives. On the financial side, now is a good time to make sure that we have planned for Christmas. It is a really great idea to have a realistic and workable budget in place before the season really kicks off. Identifying available resources and having a list of priorities is always a good idea to ensure that we don't lose control of our finances – if you would like to know more, please contact your local PSS team. A quick word about our colleagues deployed overseas: Christmas can be particularly difficult when a loved one is away and sometimes the support of colleagues can be really appreciated. If you have friends who are deployed at this time of the year, be sure to check in with them and their families – even a simple WhatsApp message to people who are away, or to their families left behind can mean a lot! SUICIDE AWARENESS AND PREVENTION Suicide is a subject that we sometimes like to avoid discussing, which is understandable. At the same time, it affects almost all of us in some way or another during our lifetimes. We know now that being open about suicide, and not being afraid to talk about it, can help reduce the risk and make it more likely that vulnerable people will get the help they need in time. The PSS works closely with the National Office for Suicide Prevention to minimise the risk of suicide to our personnel and their families. This gives us access to really high quality suicide awareness and prevention training, and I would like to briefly describe some of them. START is a ninety minute online interactive training programme which you can access and complete in the privacy and comfort of your own home. It is designed to give you the skills, knowledge and the confidence that you need to keep others safe from the risk of suicide. You can complete the training all in one go, or you can do it in stages, depending on what suits you best. You can register to do START free of charge through your local PSS team – just supply a civilian email address and your first and second name and we will do the rest. The next programme that we use is SafeTALK. Our PSS team members are qualified SafeTALK trainers and you can access this training through your chain of command or by contacting your local PSS team directly. SafeTALK is a really effective half-day of face to face training using a mix of trainer-led and multimedia presentations. When you have finished SafeTALK training, you can expect to be able to more easily identify people who may be at risk of suicide. You will know how to intervene in safety and with confidence and how to get people to the right help and support. ASIST training is an acronym for Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training. It is a two-day workshop and is especially useful for people whose role may bring them into contact with vulnerable co-workers or others. In the Defence Forces context, ASIST is appropriate training for NCOs and Officers in training institutions or who are employed in command appointments either at home or overseas. All training opportunities are available to serving personnel and to adult members of their families. We are also able to facilitate training veterans through our veterans associations. Remember that suicide awareness training may NOT be suitable for everyone. It depends on where you are at in your life, your state of mind and recent life experiences. PSS teams are available to talk with you, to ensure that all personnel are protected. We need to talk about suicide and to keep ourselves, our friends and colleagues and our families safe! FINAL MESSAGE So, the message is clear! It has been another tough year, and we are all looking forward to moving on with positivity into 2024. In the meantime, we have managed to get this far by taking care of ourselves, and by taking care of each other. We succeed as a community - let's make sure that we do the same for our mental health by being more aware of each other, by being prepared to reach out if we think that someone needs our help, by knowing the services that are available within the Defence Forces and the Community, and by being willing to get the right training to ensure that we have the skills, the knowledge and the confidence to help each other when we most need it! You can contact your local PSS Team directly for support or information on anything written above or for any other matter. If you would like details of how to contact your local PSS Team please email pss@military.ie

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