The Mayor of Greater Manchester has expressed support for making suicide prevention training mandatory for social workers across England’s local authorities. His position follows the case of Matilda Davis, a 36-year-old parent-carer and former art teacher who died by suicide on October 3 last year, minutes after an emotional meeting with social workers who had not received such training.
Davis had communicated struggles to multiple professionals regarding her inability to manage full-time care for her seven-year-old disabled son while navigating an impending divorce. She described feeling exhausted and anxious about her circumstances. During their visit, the social workers did not ask Davis whether she was experiencing suicidal thoughts, nor did they direct her toward crisis support organizations.
At an inquest in March, a coroner issued a rare prevention of future deaths notice requiring Warwickshire Council to implement mandatory suicide prevention training for approximately 600 staff members, primarily social workers. Manuela Perteghella, the Liberal Democrat MP representing the area where Davis lived, raised the case at prime minister’s questions, citing University of Birmingham research indicating that 41% of parent-carers have contemplated suicide. She requested that Burnham meet with Davis’s family to discuss expanding such training requirements across all local authorities.
Burnham committed to arranging a ministerial meeting to discuss the proposal. Davis’s brother stated that the family believed the training could have prevented his sister’s death, noting that asking direct questions about suicidal ideation represents best practice guidance from mental health organizations like Mind. He emphasized that making such training mandatory across all councils rather than leaving decisions to individual authorities would prevent a “postcode lottery” of support availability.
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