UPDATE:

Dear all,

I’m only a week away from heading to the Alps for my Everest Challenge. I’m both nervous and excited. 

We have made a 1 minute video which explains what I’m doing: https://vimeo.com/798695213/eb2a6b0459

This comes with masses of love and thanks for your support.

Isabella xx

***

The story:

Our friend James was 21 when he took his own life in 2006. I had known him since he was a small boy, and as he grew up I couldn’t imagine a better adjusted, happier or healthier young man. 

There was no warning. It was a fun and laughter filled day with his family and friends. By evening he was dead. 10 days earlier he had had a minor operation, after which he had tried and failed to get urgent help for anxiety and suicidal thoughts. 

I was at my parents’ home for a pre-Christmas celebration when the call came with the devastating news. I knew then that I wanted to do something to help, and as the years have passed that wish has grown stronger and the need more pressing.

In 2008 James’ parents Clare Milford Haven and Nick Wentworth-Stanley launched James’ Place, a suicide prevention charity. Today it has centres in London and Liverpool with a national rollout programme planned. £10M is now urgently needed.

On February 28th for 4 days I will undertake a challenge known as Everest in the Alps. On skis, a group of us will be skinning up the height of Everest, 8,848 vertical metres. It will be the equivalent of running 3 back to back marathons each day, starting before dawn. We will be climbing for 10-12 hour daily, then sleeping in a hut. Temperatures can drop to -30c. 

I am now three months into the heaviest training programme I have ever tried.

It would mean the world to me if you were able to make a donation.  It is for a cause of supreme value. Each day, every day another James asks for help. We desperately need more centres. We desperately need your help.

***

The charity:

James’ Place exists to save the lives of men in suicidal crisis. The charity was set up by Clare Milford Haven and Nick Wentworth-Stanley in 2008 after their twenty-one-year-old son, James, died by suicide ten days after a minor operation. James had no history of mental illness or depression and had sought urgent help for anxiety and suicidal thoughts, but didn’t find it.  

James' Place makes the experience of finding help as easy as possible. It offers men who are experiencing a suicidal crisis a brief, intensive, therapeutic intervention in a safe environment. Men who walk through the door at James’ Place will be in a space where they feel valued and respected.

Suicide: UK facts and figures

• Suicide is the leading cause of death in men under 50.
• Those at highest risk are men aged between 45 and 49 years who have a rate of 27.1 deaths per 100,000 population. (ONS 2019)

Our team works with referrers to offer an intervention to men who have arrived at a crisis point in response to predominantly social and psychological stressors, such as debt, loneliness and relationship problems. James’ Place does not offer longer-term mental health or psychotherapeutic support, but supports the person practically and emotionally through the crisis period, helping them to access any longer-term support they may require via other services. We do not replicate or replace existing statutory services, but instead work closely with the local NHS and wider services to ensure the right men are referred to our service, and supported when they leave it. 

James’ Place in Liverpool and London, and expanding across England
Building on the success of our first James’ Place in Liverpool, we are now expanding our model to reach more men in suicidal crisis. In July 2020 we set up a small, virtual service in London to respond to immediate need. We started seeing men face-to-face in April 2021 in a temporary space in Clerkenwell and our permanent home in Bunhill Row, Old Street, was opened by HRH The Duke of Cambridge on 3 May 2022. We expect to see up to 500 men per year at James’ Place London and 350 in Liverpool. 

These findings demonstrate that all men who took part experienced a clinically and statistically significant positive change as a result of James’ Place’s intervention, with an average drop of 50 points on the scale from moderate/severe to mild.  Most of the men spoke about being in suicidal crisis and described how they were not sure where they would have gone for help if James’ Place was not there and that, ultimately, they may not have survived. 

Dan’s story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hn_bOIgevc&ab_channel=James%27PlaceUK

To maintain our existing service and expand to three further cities, we need to raise £10m in the next three years. We are looking for partners who can support us in our mission to stop men dying by suicide and prevent other families from going through what James’ family has experienced.

For more information, please contact Amy on amy.swart@jamesplace.org.uk . Thank you.