Forward For Life

Who are we?

Established in 2012 in Birmingham, we are a Social Enterprise that through our programmes of work and training aim to support our communities and professionals from across the board to become more suicide aware and be enablers of improved quality of life.

FFL work alongside communities, the Health and Social Care sector and private sector bringing a specialist knowledge in the fields of Mental Health, Well-Being and Suicide Prevention.

We engage with the core belief that communities and professionals across all walks of life have the ability to make a real difference in their own and others health and wellbeing.

Our particular passion centres on Suicide Prevention and we believe the key to reducing the number of deaths by suicide does not just lie in the hands of health professionals but must be, and can be, dealt with effectively by everybody whatever their background.

“by engaging communities directly and by giving community members the skills and ongoing development opportunities to support people at risk of suicide, I believe, we can make a real difference.”

Our EPIC approach

Developed alongside Common Unity in 2016, Forward For Life adopts the EPIC approach to meet our aims as an organisation.

Through programmes that Educate, Protect, Intervene and Champion we support people to know what needs to be done to keep themselves and those around them as well as they can be.

Our approach to improving wellbeing recognises that short term investment in individual wellbeing has huge benefits in the long term.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure – Benjamin Franklin

That’s why people are at the heart of everything we do. So, all our
programmes don’t start with illness, they start with building health and wellbeing.

Educate

Knowledge is power, and if people are educated to know what helps them function in a more healthy way, then people have the power to look after themselves better.

Intervene

The learning we promote is one that helps people help themselves and help others. Being able to recognise and support others when they are struggling has benefits for all.

Protect

Life often throws us a curve ball. Our programmes support people to know what techniques they can use to best cope with the challenges we often unexpectedly face.

Champion

Good wellbeing is paramount in realising a good quality of life. We utilise every opportunity, be it training, programme development, events design or strategic support, to champion the importance of good wellbeing for all. We also champion other like-minded organisations across the health and social care sector.