Samaritans and Facebook have launched ‘Help a Friend in Need’ to mark World Suicide Prevention Day. The ‘Help a Friend in Need’ guide is available to everyone and is designed to help people identify when one of their friends may be struggling to cope. The online world can be as stressful and often friends will leave comments, status updates or act differently on the internet than they would in real life. Facebook and Samaritan recognise that strange behaviour online can start alarm bells ringing for friends and family and have produced this guide to let you know that if you are worried there is advice and help.

The guide offers suggestions on how to approach a friend, what to say, how to react and what to avoid. Click here to visit the Samaritans Facebook page, and find out more about the Ballymena Branch of Samaritans here. To read the ‘Help a Friend in Need” guide click here.