PIPS Downpatrick closes its doors after 16 years’ service

PIPS Downpatrick closes its doors after 16 years’ service

27 January 2021

A LOCAL suicide prevention group started by a grieving Killough mother 16 years ago has closed its doors for good.

The McAteer family, who were behind PIPS Downpatrick, have stepped down from running the group which is credited with saving many lives locally.

They received hundreds of thank-up messages from individuals and families they have helped after they announced the news on social media.

Josephine McAteer started PIPS Downpatrick after her 23 year-old son Gerard took his own life after a night out in 2003.

She later described his loss like “being under water” and “hell” and spoke of how she had to wait eight months for grief counselling while having to deal with the stigma of how her son died.

Determined to improve the local support to families like hers, Josephine was inspired by another bereaved parent, Philip McTaggart who founded PIPS Belfast, to get the group up and running.

She was often one of first early callers to a family’s door after they had lost a family member and offered direct help to parents whose children where going through a crisis.

Mrs McAteer was joined later by her daughter Brenda, son Patrick and daughter-in-law Andrea who were all heavily involved in the group as well as managing fund-raising activities.

The family suffered another sad loss six years after Gerard’s death when his brother Michael died from a brain tumour at the age of 31.

PIPS Downpatrick funded counsellors and therapists to provide talk therapy as well as suicide awareness training and holistic therapies, mentoring and mediation classes.

The group were often able to provide one to one counselling quickly and became a collective voice for families left traumatised by the loss of their loved ones.

Brenda explained the reasoning behind the emotional reason to close.

“We set out to highlight suicide and the stigma around it and we do feel we have done a good job,” she said.

“It was always going to come to an end and we never thought we would last this long. Even before the pandemic hit last year,  we’d got to a point where we were considering closing. Then the pandemic happened and we knew that it wasn’t the right time. We just had to keep going.

“After Christmas we knew we all needed to have time for ourselves and our families as we realised that so much of our own lives were being out on hold doing the voluntary work. Mum is also getting older, she’s 65 now, and we just felt that we had done as much as we could.”

She stressed that all counselling sessions promised would continue they were complete.

“We have been family run on a voluntary basis and  due to the generosity of the local community, we were able to pay up to three therapists at any given time with no waiting time for those in distress or despair,” added Brenda.

She said that while the lockdown had presented challenges to the group regarding fund-raising and provision of support, counselling work continued through Zoom.

“There’s been some great fund-raising and we have been truly grateful but we just felt it was time to step back.”

Brenda said that while she hope that others may well organise and take over the gap that PIPS Downpatrick’s closure may leave, she felt that local mental health provision had moved on since the group started.

“We would hope that the statutory services run by the Trust will continue. There are now mental health social workers in all the surgeries, yet 10 years ago you wouldn’t have heard of this,” she added.

Brenda said that while her family was sad at the closure, they were all very proud of what they had achieved with the help of the local community.

“We truly believe we have saved lives and while it has been challenging at times, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I met such wonderful people and we would like to thank everyone who worked with us and supported us.”

A helpful leaflet called The Art of Conversation on how to talk to a person feeling potentially suicidal is available from local group Suicide Down to Zero.