Self-Injury Awareness Day 2011
Each year, the 1st of March is designated as SIAD around the world. It's a time when we can all come together to help raise awareness about self-injury and self-harm. SIAD has been running for many years, and has become more and more popular in the UK over the last few years, and FirstSigns (previously LifeSIGNS) is proud to lead the UK in self-injury awareness by providing support, information, fact sheets and posters for everyone to use.
On this page you will find:
- Things to do during February;
- Fact sheets to print and distribute;
- Posters to pin up at work / school / college / uni;
- Templates for letters to send to newspapers and radio shows, MPs, doctors and teachers;
- Our free booklet to download;
- Guidance for a School / College Self-Injury Policy
The slide show above is something you can share with parents and friends; March is "Tell Someone Month".
Things you can do to raise awareness
 Buy Awareness wristbands and key rings from FirstSigns
They're fab, and they don't say 'self-injury' or 'self-harm' on them, so if your friends ask "what's the orange keyring for?" you can just say 'charity' or you can talk about the work FirstSigns does.
Spread the word about this page
www.lifesigns.org.uk/siad/
- Could you link to this page from your website or blog?
- Could you write a note about this page on Bebo, Facebook, MySpace, audioboo, Twitter, Buzz or your fave Social Networking site?
- Could you email your friends with the link?
- Could you mention this page on your fave Message Board?
Follow our Facebook 'Page' or join our Group
You can easily share your SIAD plans or stories within our Facebook Page or Group - and the SIAD event.
Join in the SIAD discussions on our Message Board
Our Message Board caters to our warm and vibrant community all year round.
Write for our blog
If you're planning an event for SIAD, *doing your bit* to raise awareness in any way, or have something to say about self-injury awareness, then we want to hear from you! We'll be publishing your SIAD stories on our blog (they'll be published by Jules and you're welcome to remain anonymous).
Email Jules@lifesigns.org.uk and don't forget pictures of your event if you have them (sorry, no photographs of people will be published).
Write a letter
 You could use our template letter to write to your MP, your doctor, your school / teacher, your local radio station, your local newspaper, your local TV news, your favourite magazines – the whole media!
Our template letter is also appropriate for email of course.
 Template SIAD Letter [RTF / Word; 9KB]
Feel free to mix our letter up, put your own words into it!
Send out / Stick up our Factsheets
 Along with the letter (or without) send the appropriate Factsheet to:
- your parents or guardians; Parents' Factsheet [PDF; 480KB]
- your school, college or welfare officers at uni; Teachers' Factsheet [PDF; 450KB]
- your RGN or doctor / psychologist; Healthcare Worker Factsheet [PDF; 600KB]
- your friends; Friends' Factsheet [PDF; 450KB]
- the local media;
- your male friends who self-injure; Males' Factsheet [PDF; 450KB]
 Stick up our posters
Print our posters on A4 paper (or larger if you can) and ask permission to stick them up at your local library, in your school / college / uni and even at work. Our posters are 'landscape' (y'know, 'sideways').
 click to open the photo version - then simply 'right-click' on it to save it.
Our posters have 'tear-off' bits at the bottom so passers by can take our web address with them. You'll want to cut along the dotted lines a bit :)
Each poster is available as a photo and as a PDF - download which ever you prefer, the photo version is very high quality and a large file, while the PDF version downloads really fast and is probably good enough to print on most printers.
These are very large files; they must be downloaded to you computer over a few minutes / seconds.
- Breaking the silence - purple writing [PDF; 15MB]
Breaking the silence (photo version) [JPG; 2.4MB] or the larger PNG [5.2MB]
WITH 'tear-off' bits (please cut on the dotted lines) [PDF; 1.3MB]
WITH 'tear-offs' (photo version) [JPG; 3.5MB]
- Breaking the silence - orange writing [PDF; 18.9MB]
Breaking the silence (photo version) [JPG; 2.5MB] or the larger PNG [5.2MB]
WITH 'tear-off' bits (please cut on the dotted lines) [PDF; 1.3MB]
WITH 'tear-offs' (photo version) [JPG; 3.5MB]
- Breaking the silence - grey version for black & white printing [PDF; 15.1MB]
Breaking the silence (grey photo version) [JPG; 1.7MB]
WITH 'tear-off' bits (please cut on the dotted lines) [PDF; 1.3MB]
WITH 'tear-offs' (photo version) [JPG; 3.5MB]
 Blue poster (clean photo version) [JPG; only 500KB]
When viewing the poster, simply 'right-click' on it to save it to your computer for printing.
- Blue poster (crinkled photo version) [JPG; only 900KB]
When viewing the poster, simply 'right-click' on it to save it to your computer for printing.
- Blue poster (dusty photo version) [JPG; 1MB]
When viewing the poster, simply 'right-click' on it to save it to your computer for printing.
- WE ARE... poster
When the poster is downloaded / open, make sure you save it to your computer. When viewing the photo version, 'right-click' on it with your mouse and save it then.
We can't 'send' you posters; they are right here for you to download, email around and print off.
Download the FirstSigns SI Awareness Book
It's only 50 odd pages, but it's a handy resource to have around.
 FirstSigns Self-Injury Awareness Book - 2nd Edition (Revised) [PDF; 500KB]
For printing on A5 paper, or, two pages per A4.
Help your teachers create a Self-Injury Policy for your School or College
Our guidance document helps headteachers and principles consider what is necessary for a school self-injury policy; it's a very popular document, please download it for your school or college / uni.
Creating a School Self-Injury Policy [PDF; 240KB]
You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open PDFs, which is free from
Adobe,
and every computer should have it!
All files, programs and downloads within the FirstSigns website have been scanned for virusses, and you are encouraged to scan all files that you download.
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