A charity set up by a couple after their daughter took her own life are calling for more to be done to help teachers provide mental health support to students.

Sharon and Paul O'Gara, who created the Mary O'Gara Foundation after the death of their daughter, provide suicide prevention training to increase awareness around the mental health of young people.

But now they are calling for more to be done to give teachers the time to take part in suicide prevention training and incorporate discussions about mental health into school life.

Today, teachers have walked out again as part of a dispute over pay, school budgets, and unmanageable workloads, and the O'Gara's are backing the call to support school staff and free up time for teachers.

Sharon O’Gara, from Fulwood, said they have seen a struggle to release teachers and staff from their current timetables for training.

She said: “We want to get into more school’s but it’s just the time, the time that the staff need out.”

Studies show that each day five young people take their own lives, and 200 school children die each year from suicide.

The suicide prevention training provides the tools needed to identify and support a young person in crisis, and to promote positive discussion around the issue of suicide to encourage anyone who is struggling to seek help by breaking the stigma around suicide.

The sessions last three hours, which Mrs O'Gara said has impacted the charity's ability of rolling it out in schools due to the time pressures teachers face.

With her husband, they set up the charity six months after the death of their 27-year-old daughter Mary in May 2020.

She added: “When you look at someone who was there then the next minute there gone, and you think about how preventable that situation is.

“You can sit on your hands and do nothing, or you could turn the negative into a positive and try and do something to help other people.

“We can’t help Mary, but we can certainly do everything we can to prevent it from happening to other people.”

Sharon Thomas, who works for Galloway Society for the Blind and Lancaster Infirmary eye clinic, took the training and offers practical and emotional support for children, young people and adults.

Mrs Thomas said: “It has given me so much more confidence of how to speak to somebody if they are expressing thoughts of being depressed.

“Anybody who works with young people I think needs to do this training.

“I would advise them to try to make it a priority. Whatever they needed to do to attend that course, then I think they should make that a priority.

“You could potentially save some lives by knowing the strategies that you are taught on that course on how to speak to somebody or a young person.”

For more information or to work with the charity, visit marysstory.org.uk.

If you are struggling with your mental health, contact the Samaritans 24 hours a day by calling 116 123.