Jay’s Personalised Safety Planning Toolkit: A guide to support meaningful safety planning for self-harm and suicide

Summary

This toolkit is a co‑designed set of materials created with researchers, people with personal experience of suicide and self-harm, and healthcare professionals. Inspired by the family of Jaymie Mart, known as Jay, who died by suicide in 2012 at the age of 32, the toolkit—which was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR)—offers clear, practical guidance to help adults create and review personalised safety plans.

Safety plans are structured tools that support people experiencing self‑harm or suicidal thoughts by helping them identify strategies to stay safe during a crisis. The resource is designed for families, friends, wider support networks, individuals themselves, and health and social care professionals.

Content

In this toolkit you will find:

•  A guide through each step of the safety planning journey, from starting a plan to reviewing and updating it.
• Examples from people with experience of suicide and self-harm.
• Links to further resources and support information.

You can use it to:

•  Guide safety planning conversations.
• Support training.
• Encourage reflection and learning. 

This prototype toolkit is based on research evidence and was co-designed with people who have lived experience, alongside health and social care practitioners. It has been developed to support good-quality, personalised safety planning in practice. It follows national guidance, including recommendations from NICE and the NHS.

 This toolkit is dedicated to Jaymie, who sadly died by suicide. You can listen to Jaymie’s mother, Paula, share Jaymie’s story and explain why she believes personalised safety planning is important here.