Clubs and foundations across Bristol Sport’s network have partnered with a pioneering suicide prevention charity.
R;pple Suicide Prevention provides immediate support to people searching online for harmful content relating to the topic of suicide and self-harm.
Bristol City, Bristol Bears and Bristol Flyers and their respective charitable foundations are employing the R;pple tool, which can be downloaded as a browser extension or be put onto WiFi networks to intervene in online searches that relate to self-harm and suicide.
RESOURCES
It instead guides the user through a series of breathing activities, then signposts them to free, 24/7 helplines and mental health resources.
Alice Hendy MBE set up R;pple Suicide Prevention after losing her only sibling, Josh, in November 2020 to suicide at the age of 21. Josh had been researching techniques to take his own life via harmful internet searches.
To date R;pple has been downloaded more than 1.9 million times, and intercepted over 60,000 harmful online searches.
PARTNERSHIP
Alice said: “Since losing Josh, football has often kept me going, and watching the games on the television or attending a match in person has given me something to look forward to in some very dark days and weeks. I’m absolutely over the moon to say that Bristol Sport and its clubs have partnered with R;pple as we continue to encourage fans to open up about their mental health.
“This is far more than a partnership for us, it’s an affiliation that is saving lives, and we couldn’t be more grateful to Bristol Sport for being so welcoming and helping us to shine a light on this crucially important topic.”
