Stand-up comedy course for men at risk of suicide wins NHS funding | Mental health

Stand-up comedy is regularly listed as one of the most difficult professions in the world, accounting for 90% of the top 10 fears of the people.

But a course that helps some of the country’s most vulnerable people by training them to be comedians has proved so successful that it has been socially prescribed by NHS trusts and private practitioners across the country.

“I taught comedy for 10 years, and students often told me how much stronger, more resilient, and happier they were after exploring their personal history through stand-up comedy,” said Angie Belcher, founder of Comedy on Referral. acting comedian at the University of Bristol.

“This inspired me to prove that the models, exercises and games used in the stand-up comedy course can help people recover from emotional problems such as mental illness, postnatal depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety disorders,” she said.

After completing an extremely successful six-week NHS trauma course in Bristol, Comedy on Referral has already won NHS funding to help men at risk of suicide in London. Belcher is also in private practice discussions to expand the course for young people with autism and ADHD.

“My trauma victim course encourages them to handle their trauma differently so that they can change who the victim is and choose the story. They can actually go down to “That’s what I thought, and then this thing happened to me,” Belcher said.

“It allows survivors to consciously use comedy to change their point of view, but it also puts them in a physically powerful position because being on stage is very powerful,” she said. “You can talk directly to the audience about important things, which means you have the opportunity to change their lives. As a comedian, you could be the reason someone in your audience does something different.

Belcher’s course, originally piloted by Spear, the team at Wellspring Social Prescribing for Equality and Resilience in Bristol, is the result of a year-long research project on the effects of comedy as a therapeutic agent on human well-being and mental health.

The course guides clients recommended by the social prescribing team through writing, presenting and analyzing their personal stories to create a five-minute stand-up comedy kit using games, group and individual work.

This week, Belcher won a grant from Northwest London Integrated Care System (NW London ICS), one of the largest health and care partnerships in the country, working in 10 NHS trusts and eight London boroughs to achieve a national 10 % reduction in suicides by 2020-2021

Belcher will work with psychologists and men who have experienced suicide to help up to 20 men aged 18 and over participate in a comedy event at the end of the course for an audience of at least 100 people.

“We have never done anything like this before and we are very excited because we hope it will reach men who, although diagnosed as at high risk of suicide, do not think they have a problem and will not walk. to consult or visit something that means “suicide prevention,” said Lourdes Colcloff, head of suicide prevention at Rethink Mental Illness, which distributes the grant to NW London ICS. “It’s a different way to engage with this hard-to-reach group.”

Belcher said he was aware of the fine line between telling personal stories and causing previous trauma. To prevent this, psychologists support participants during their introduction to therapeutic writing techniques, while local services, GPs and Samaritans are identified during the course.

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“I hope that the participants will use what they have learned during the course in their daily lives so that they can embark on future endeavors with joy, hope and playfulness, instead of throwing away their violent teenager or depressed 20-year-old or grieving mother. “The person or whatever,” Belcher said.

“I want participants to leave the course with a different part of themselves – their comedic personality – so they can enjoy their lives in different ways and hope for a better way.”

• In the United Kingdom, you can contact the Papyrus Suicide Youth Charity on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org. In the United Kingdom, you can contact the Samaritans at 116 123 or by email at jo@samaritans.org. In the United States, the National Suicide Prevention Line is 1-800-273-8255. Other international suicide hotlines can be found at www.befrienders.org