Community
Never feel alone
Making it normal to talk openly about suicide and how the job is affecting you, with trusted networks that look out for each other.
For every blue light and frontline worker
You see what most people do not.You carry what most people would not.You do not have to carry it alone.
Silence Between Sirens is a suicide prevention cause for the emergency services. We make it safe to speak up early, before breaking point.
Why we exist
People do not go from fine to crisis overnight.
It builds. Shift after shift. Job after job. Which means there are points along the way where someone can be reached.
Emergency services personnel are dying by suicide, and deaths are not consistently recorded anywhere in the UK. The absence of data does not mean the absence of the problem. This is preventable.
Why we exist27%
More than one in four emergency services staff and volunteers had contemplated taking their own lives due to stress and poor mental health while working for the emergency services.
46%
said someone would be treated differently, in a negative way, if they disclosed a mental health problem at their organisation.
Our approach
Community. Care. Change.
Three areas, each addressing a different part of the problem: the people around you, the support available, and the system you work in.
Care
The right support, at the right time
Helping the people around someone struggling to respond with confidence, and making good support easier to reach.
Change
Fixing the system that puts people at risk
Working with leaders and services so suicide prevention becomes part of how the emergency services operate.
Look out for each other
The people most likely to notice are the people alongside you.
Around three in four people who die by suicide were not in contact with mental health services in the year before. They were still turning up for work.
Asking someone directly if they are thinking about suicide does not put the idea in their head. You will not make it worse. You might be the only person who asks.
Myth
Asking makes it more likely.
Evidence
No study has found that effect.
Myth
Services will pick it up.
Evidence
Around three in four were never in contact with them.
New on the site
26 September 2026
Six posters to print
A2 and A3 posters for a noticeboard, a control room or the back of a door, free to download as a set or one at a time.
Get the posters25 September 2026
Three more ambassadors
Lauren, Jess and Jules join the crew, from the Met, a child abuse investigation team and an ambulance service.
Meet the crew18 September 2026
Guidance and resources
A new page gathering free guidance, films and podcasts from the organisations that know this ground.
Have a look
News and reflections
See everythingWhat we are writing
Next event10 October 2026 · Gosfield, Essex
Reflection · 17 September 2026
A month of saying difficult things out loud
No one in the emergency services should be left to carry this alone. Making that real takes people in a lot of different places.
Reflection · 16 September 2026
What happens after the job
Post-incident support is the gap where a lot of harm is either prevented or set in motion.
Reflection · 15 September 2026
The days that are not marked
Awareness days interrupt the silence for a day. The work is what we do on all the days that are not marked.
The book
Silence Between Sirens, by Hannah Cooper
Written by our founder, Hannah Cooper. 300 copies sold, raising £361 for the cause.
Wear it. Start the conversation.
T-shirts, hoodies, vests, patches, pin badges and MOLLE tags all year round, plus limited drops of challenge coins. Every purchase supports the cause.
Our community
Follow @silencebetweensirensMore than 10,000 of us on Instagram
You do not have to be at breaking point to reach out.
Silence Between Sirens is not a crisis service. These lines are free and there for you now.