A mental health nurse hopes to offer helpful insights into what more can be done to prevent suicides in British farming by embarking on an international study tour.
Lucia Slack, who lives on a farm in Cumbria, has been awarded a prestigious Nuffield Farming Scholarship to study the pressing issue.
Her studies, sponsored by the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, will take her to countries where there are high suicide rates within agriculture, such as India and China.
She will scrutinise successful programs that have tackled mental health and wellbeing, focusing on peer support, community engagement, and reducing stigma around mental health.
Ms Slack works as an NHS mental health nurse in rural Cumbria and lives on a farm where her husband Johnny is a first-generation dairy farmer in the Eden Valley.
She said: “I have both personal and professional experience of how stressful the agricultural industry can be. I wanted my Nuffield Scholarship to focus on suicide in agriculture because it’s such a big problem.
“Three people a week die by suicide in agriculture. With my background, I really hope to be able to positively influence the industry by exploring effective ways to prevent suicide and promote mental health in agriculture.”
Ms Slack also hopes to visit Australia where a Minister for Mental Health has been appointed and Japan where psychological therapy is not covered by health insurance.
She will visit the USA where a rural mental health conference takes place in Alaska, and New Zealand where the industry is supported by a large number of farming charities.
She believes that the UK’s key challenges to addressing suicide in agriculture include raising awareness of support to the 'hardest to reach'.
Allied industry professionals also need to be better equipped to support farmers they are in direct contact with, and the stigma around talking about mental health should be better tackled.
“There are lots of amazing services out there," Ms Slack said, "I want to understand what the UK is already doing well and highlight it, but also explore how we can target the market that we aren’t reaching?
"How can we make people more aware of the support that is out there? I want to learn what approaches are being used to achieve this.”
Since 1980, the Yorkshire Agricultural Society has sponsored Nuffield Farming Scholarships which provide the opportunity to study and travel abroad.
Allister Nixon, CEO of the society, said supporting the health and wellbeing of the farming community was a key priority.
"I am delighted that the society is sponsoring Lucia to study such an important topic that I hope the wider industry will benefit from.”
