SUICIDE and how to prevent it is one of the enduring mental health challenges and now a new initiative is hoping to make a breakthrough in Dorset - by holding a festival to discuss it.

Organisers of the Festival of Life and Death (FoLaD) will be using music, talks, poetry, art, entertainment, and social gatherings to raise awareness about suicide, suicide prevention and bereavement support.

They are hoping the event - on September 8 this year - will promote mental health education and share best practice in an environment that is easier for people to relate to.

One of its facilitators, Erica Brown, said: "Prevention of suicide is simple in theory: eat well, sleep well, socialise, exercise, reduce stresses, get help with particular anxieties, be among caring loving people and avoid people who are uncaring or threatening.

"Get these things right, and suicide risk reduces, but prevention is not so easy in practice so the world needs to change its attitudes," she said.

In Dorset, as the county awaits publication of its own suicide prevention plan - understood to be still in review - around one person a week takes their own life and this figure doesn’t include deaths of this nature in Bournemouth or Poole.

According to The Samaritans there were 6,188 suicides in the UK in 2015 with the highest suicide rate for men aged 40–44. In England female suicide rates are at their highest in a decade with a 3.8% increase.

FoLaD will be launched during an open meeting on Thursday (February 22) at the Shelley Theatre, Beechwood Avenue, Bournemouth, from 1.30pm to 4pm.

Erica Brown said: " One of the big purposes of The Festival of Life and Death is to break the taboos; to remove the shame and embarrassment; to give people and groups – everybody, a platform and a voice.

"The idea is to help design suicide out of life and society, locally and globally and we are open to everyone interested in or affected by suicide and mental health, and potential societal changes."

*Contact Erica on 01202 302565