Norfolk dad's petition to add suicide prevention to the curriculum to be debated in parliament today
Three Dads Walking are highlighting that suicide is the biggest killer of young people across the UK
A debate to make suicide prevention a compulsory part of the school curriculum is taking place today - thanks to the work of a Norfolk dad.
Tim Owens, from Shouldham, near King's Lynn, is from 'Three Dads Walking', a group of three parents who took on a 600 mile long trek in 30 days last October - all to raise awareness of suicide.
Now, a petition they launched, calling to make suicide prevention lessons mandatory in schools, will be debated in parliament this afternoon, after they collected more than 150,000 signatures.
The debate starts in Parliament at around 4:30, and it's expected to go on until 7:30 tonight.
Tim lost his daughter Emily in March 2020.
He told us why he wants to see the change:
"People are going through some really tough times and sometimes those people need support. When you lose somebody to suicide, you feel totally on your own and like an island.
"You feel like it hasn't happened to anyone else, but it has. There's over six thousand suicides a year in the UK and each one of those suicides affects 135 people- that means that around 1 million people are affected by suicide a year".
"We need to start talking about it"
Ahead of the debate, he told us how he's feeling: "It's quite surreal. We went to parliament last week and met Nick Fletcher, who's leading the debate, and it was surreal to be sitting there in Westminster discussing our petition in the corridors of power.
"I just hope some action comes out the other end."
He told us why action's needed now: "When we lost Emily nearly three years ago, we had no idea that suicide was such a big issue across the country, and that people wouldn't talk about suicide and suicide prevention.
"If it's the biggest risk to our young people, we need to start talking about it and giving young people the tools they need to deal with it...
"Around two hundred school children lose their lives every year, yet we're not equipping our young people and children to deal with those negative thoughts.
"All we're asking is that suicide prevention is put into the curriculum to deal with that."