
On the 8th of July 2021, Dunstable Town FC became only the 46th (semi) professional football club in the UK to be accredited as a Community Benefit Society by the Financial Conduct Authority in association with the Football Supporters’ Association.
We started the new season in our sixth year of partnership with Mind BLMK and our third year of working in support of CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably)
Our First Team strip features logos of both charities on it, and the work of both is promoted by pitchside advertising boards and on our social media platforms.
The Club now facilitates three mental health peer support groups and a support group for people who may be feeling lonely and socially isolated, as part of our community support programme, Improving the Lives of Others.
We’re a social enterprise and believe that actions speak louder than words. The Club has pioneered mental health support in ways we believe have not been tried before by any other (semi) professional football club.
Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. Every year on September 10th we try to raise awareness of how and why people die by suicide and campaign to seek ways in which we can help those who are considering ending their own lives.
Suicide is rarely a spur of the moment action; it is usually pre-mediated and carefully planned. It comes from a place of desperation and despair and the belief that the world would be a better place without you being alive and your friends and family relieved of the burden that you believe you are to them.
In the UK we know men are three times more likely to die by suicide than women, with men aged between 45 – 49 and women aged between 50 – 54 particularly at risk.
In 2022, twenty people in the UK died by suicide every day. Many more each day make unsuccessful attempts to end their lives.
Several people at this Club have lost someone close to them through suicide.
Checking in with someone you think is struggling with life or with their emotions and mental health and asking them how they are & whether they feel safe is one simple act we can all do. Our colleagues at Mind BLMK and CALM can offer more structured support and can signpost people to services where they can receive the most appropriate help.
If you are experiencing difficult thoughts and impulses which make you feel unsafe, please call 999 or speak to the Samaritans on 116 123.
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