Our General Approach To Service Care
Develop awareness of your suicidal state. Voice out immediately and seek help early.
Comply with all safety measures and commit fully to care. Please keep in mind to help us so that we can help you.
Together, we can break the cycle of suicidal behaviour.
We believe that keeping you safe is of paramount importance. This is why we are absolutely honest and transparent with what we share here so you don't have to second guess our intentions and standard operating procedures. We keep in place stringent rules for both volunteers and people who seek help. These rules are not meant to discourage you from help-seeking but to encourage you to take ownership of your own life. We enforce self-responsibility because if you are unable to exercise control over your actions, your safety is out of our hands. We will support you the best we can but this is not the same as giving your life to us to manage.
To empower you, it is necessary to break away from the victim narrative.
The sad truth is that you will be held accountable by society for what you do even if you are mentally ill or experiencing severe distress. These actions may include any form of harm that you might inflict on yourself and others. If you are currently seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist, it is also crucial that you remain accountable for your own health by adhering to treatment and taking your medications as prescribed. While accountability may be difficult when things feel overwhelming, it is important to distinguish between suffering and responsibility.
You are not to blame for all your suffering, but you are responsible for what you do next.
If you are willing to seek help despite the adversities that you have faced, this is courage and the first step towards self-empowerment.
We ask personal details simply to maximise safety and reduce risk of harm to self and others. It is crucial for us to ask for:
- Your full name and contact details (mobile number, email and address)
- Contact details of a caregiver (friend/family) or any other emergency contact
Compliance is mandatory to access the services we offer here because we need to keep you safe before we can empower you.
We adopt a collaborative approach which is meant to build a supportive alliance and increase compliance. We request that you engage and commit fully to mutually agreed plans as the latter could make the difference between life and death in a crisis episode.
A collaborative approach also requires trust and honesty. We trust that you will seek help appropriately and maintain openness and transparency with personal information such as:
- current state of distress
- mental health diagnoses
- history of psychiatric admissions
- personal and caregiver contact details
On our part, we are determined to journey with you. Our volunteers will do the best they can within reasonable limits.
Do not be afraid if you experience episodes of distress or suicidal crises. It is normal for one's psychological condition to fluctuate according to different situational factors. You won't necessarily be apprehended by the police if you disclose your current situation to our volunteers. The earlier you disclose when you feel out of sorts, the easier it is for us to intervene and bring you to safety. There is a difference between someone threatening suicide to achieve emotional manipulation and another person feeling suicidal because of genuine emotional reasons. You don't have to be scared of the mislabel of attention-seeking when you are really in need of help. With adversity comes opportunities for growth, so let us work together to help you pick up the pieces and rebuild a better life.
Safety and confidentiality are equally important. Due to the nature of our work, we may collect data which is used to monitor your recovery and to keep you safe. We understand the importance of confidentiality because it creates a trusting relationship which is conducive to your recovery. We do not disclose your information unless you are at imminent risk of harm to self and others. To ensure safety and confidentiality are maintained, always be compliant and commit to the programme fully. This reduces the potential worsening of suicidal behaviours which might then necessitate external intervention.
The Safe U Approach
Our unique approach covers the three main focus areas of mental health, suicide intervention and life & death education (LDE). We don't just ask you to stay alive. We want you to flourish and go on to lead a life of self-actualisation through promotion of mental wellbeing and prevention of self-injurious behaviour (including self harm and suicide). In addition, self-actualisation can be facilitated by helping individuals develop psychological resilience and providing them with the means to cope better with the detrimemtal effects of grief and loss. When we turn towards life by re-evaluating the option of suicide, we are already taking a major step towards living a life of meaning and purpose.
To achieve our aims, a safe space will be created utilising the advantages of bilingualism and biculturalism. These concepts will be discussed later.
星洲守护心灵企划的方案覆盖了心理卫生，自杀干预和生死教育的领域。我们不仅希望您能活着，我们更希望您在生活中蓬勃发展，实现自我价值！这种生活以促进心理健康和预防自我伤害（包括自残和自杀）为基础。
此外，我们的企划通过帮助个人培养心理韧性，并为他们提供更好应对悲痛和失落负面影响的方式，也能够促进自我实现。当大家能通过重新评估自杀的选择而转向生活时，这本身就是迈向有意义和有目的生活的重要一步。
为了实现这一目标，本企划将创建一个安全空间，充分利用双语和双文化的优势。这些构思将在后文详细讨论。
Why bilingualism and biculturalism?
At Safe U, we strongly believe in using a model based on bilingualism and biculturalism, known as the Sociocultural Dissuation Model (SDM).
Why dissuation and not deterrence? Deterrence implies a wilful act which is contrary to societal norms. Dissuation is a nod to our emphasis on self-autonomy and compassion, which are meant to promote a sense of agency.
The most practical reason for such a model is increased accessbility to psychological help. When we incorporate language and culture into mental health, the result is multiple scaffolding which encompasses support structures as diverse as cultural resilience, collectivistic mindset, strong community support, family bonding and access to mental health resources beyond that of a single language or culture.
On a deeper level, the mental health effects are amplified. We do not have to settle for a single meaning to account for different significant protective or adverse life events.
In suicide, for example, its unstable nature results in multiple interpretations of life events which provide room for interventions to create alternative meanings or reframing of the suicide narrative.
Language and culture further facilitates perspective taking from different angles, providing a holistic view of potentially distressful life situations. As we go down even deeper, our inner working models oscillate betwen different linguistic and cultural inputs and gradually integrate them into a flexible model that regulates our thoughts and emotions. Such a state promotes resilience and enables psychological buffering.
At the heart of all these processes is the formation of self-identity and self-awareness. A stable self-identity protects us from environmental insults and maintains a sense of completeness. We also become more aware of the self and the present as we are anchored by socio-cultural support structures.
What we described above might seem pretty comprehensive but actually only represents the tip of the iceberg of our Sociocultural Dissuation Model (SDM). SDM ultimately focuses on averting the shadow side of goal-setting with the Space of Possibles and optimising how individuals make life and death decisions as well as any choices in between.
How do we perform goal optimisation in mental health and suicide support?
From the perspective of bilingualism,
1. Clarity: metacognitive awareness to articulate goals and refining objectives through mental translation
2. Commitment: perseverance via self-regulation and cognitive flexibility
3. Reframing: adaptive problem-solving and growth mindset through code-switching
From perspective of biculturalism,
4. Self vs. others: creating sustainable goals through balancing of personal ambitions and social harmony
5. Immediacy: adjusting time horizons based on situational demands or cultural expectations. Mode switching between short-term action oriented thinking and long-term strategic planning
6. Uncertainty avoidance: remaining resilient in the face of uncertain situation (flexible goal-setting embracing unpredictable experiences)
These desirable bilingualism X biculturalism attributes inform our rigorous and progressive practical communication approach, known as Heart Discourse.
We leave you with two quotes to ponder over the importance of language and culture in mental health.
Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Culture is simply the hospitality of the intellect. Your mind is open to new ideas and larger views; when they enter, you know how to receive them, and to entertain, to be entertained, and take what they have to offer without allowing them to dominate you.
Thomas Kettle
为什么坚持双语双文化？
在星洲守护心灵企划，我们坚信采用基于双语和双文化的模型， 称为社会文化劝阻模型（SDM）。
为什么是“劝阻”而不是“威慑”？因为“威慑”暗示了一种违背社会规范的故意行为。而“劝阻”则体现了我们对自主性和同理心的重视，旨在增强个体的自主意识。
这个模型最实际的采用理由，就是提高心理支援的可及性。当我们将语言和文化融入心理健康时，结果就是多重支撑结构的整合。这些支撑结构包括文化韧性、集体主义思维、强大的社区支持、家庭纽带以及在单一语言或文化之外获得心理健康资源的机会。
从更深层次来看，心理健康的效果也得到了加强。我们不必仅仅依赖单一的意义来解释具保护性或不良的重大事件。
以自杀为例子，由于其不稳定的性质，生活中的事件可以被多种方式解读，从而为自杀干预提供了空间，引导人们创造不同的意义或对自杀叙事的重构。
语言和文化能进一步促进从不同角度进行视角转换的能力，让人们面对痛苦的生活情境时保持全面的看法。再更深层次的是，我们的内在工作模式会在不同的语言和文化输入之间摆动，并逐渐将其整合为一个灵活的模式，以调节我们的思维和情感。这种状态促进了韧性，并为心理缓冲提供支持。
这些过程的核心是自我认同和自我意识的形成。稳定的自我认同保护我们免受外界的伤害，并保持完整感。同时，我们通过社会文化支持结构的支撑将变得更加意识到自我和活在当下。
上述的内容看似已经非常全面了，但实际上只是我们的社会文化劝阻模型（Sociocultural Dissuation Model, SDM）的冰山一角。SDM 的最终目标是在可能性场域（Space of Possibles）内避免目标设定的阴暗面，并优化个人在生死决策及其他各种生活选择中的心理过程。
我们如何在心理健康和自杀的预防架构中实现目标优化？
双语能力的优化要素：
清晰度（Clarity）：通过元认知觉察来更清晰地表达目标，并利用心理翻译不断优化和精炼目标。
承诺（Commitment）：通过自我调节和认知灵活性培养坚韧不拔的毅力，使个体更能坚持自己的目标。
重构（Reframing）：通过语言转换（code-switching）促进适应性的问题解决方式和成长型思维，帮助个人从不同视角看待挑战和困难。
双文化能力的优化要素：
自我与他人关系（Self vs. Others）：通过平衡个人抱负与社会和谐，设定更具可持续性的目标。
紧迫性（Immediacy）：根据情境需求或文化期待调整时间视角，灵活切换短期行动导向思维与长期战略规划，确保目标既可行又具有长期意义。
不确定性规避（Uncertainty Avoidance）：从逃避转换成拥抱不可预测的经历，并从体验中提升个人在复杂或压力情境中的适应能力。尽可能在不确定的环境下保持韧性，坚持灵活的目标设定。
这些理想的双语能力与双文化特质为我们严谨兼循序渐进的实践性沟通方法提供了指导，称之为“心语”。
我们留给您两个关于语言和文化的名言，让您了解它们在心理健康中的重要性：
“语言是人类心灵的武器库，它既包含过去的战利品，又蕴藏着未来征服的武器。”
—— 塞缪尔·泰勒·柯尔律治
“文化只是智力的款待。你的思想对新观念和更广阔的视野敞开，当它们进入时，你知道如何接纳它们，去接待，去娱乐，从中汲取它们所能提供的，而不让它们主导你。”
—— 托马斯·凯特尔
What is a 'Safe Space'?
The Asia's first 'Safe Space' created by Safe U is a comprehensive system of principles and interventions which permeate the three focus areas of mental health, sucide intervention and life & death education.
At the heart of what we do is the inculcation of a sense of responsibility in both volunteers and individuals who come to us for help. We keep the barriers to access low so that more people can receive timely help. We also value the importance of autonomy and focus on community rehabilitation to reduce involuntary admissions where possible. To achieve these principles, we adopt a novel strategy known as BECA which involves the use of behavioural economics to improve early to intermediate suicide-related decision making. When individuals are in a peri-suicidal state, they are often affected by negative thinking and feelings which impede their ability to make decisions rationally. We step in and help guide them to make a life-saving decision as choice architects, taking into account their right to maintain autonomy at all times
To ensure that we can evaluate suicide risk realistically and holistically, we created a model called ASM. This model is different from existing risk stratification models which predict suicide extremely poorly. A move from prediction to evaluation is not only necessary for pragmatic reasons but may help create highly effective support systems which are individualised, compassionate and positive-based.
Both BECA and ASM can be used individually or combined as BECA-ASM depending on situational requirements.
We also understand the importance of imminent suicide risk which is highly unstable and can lead to potentially fatal behaviours in a blink of any eye. With the piloting of our community special purpose teams, it is necessary to create a bridging procedure to connect preventive and acute interventions on the ground. The result is O/PRA which is a 7 Step Gating Procedure used to identify and address near-suicide risk. The dynamic and highly specific nature of O/PRA allow our volunteers to intervene with confidence and provide alleviation surpassing that of mental health first aid and generic brief psychological interventions.
We also run a series of regular workshops and projects. However, our flagship programmes stand out as being client-focused, highly experiential and explicitly cover the preventive, acute and recovery phases.
1. Preventive: The Safe U Barrier-Focused Suicide Prevention Procedure © , Suicide & Mental Distress Gatekeeper (SMDG) Workshop, Emotional Regulation Skills (ERS) Workshop, Uncertainty Tolerance Skills (UTS) Workshop, Death Experience Workshop (for existential crisis), First Light (初光), Safe U Psychological First Aid (PFA) Workshop (created as a collaboration request from Project First Aid, National University of Singapore and fully available to the public). The Safe U Self-Harm Mitigation Service for youths and young adults.
2. Acute Spectrum: Safe U Suicide Intervention Programme, also known as SAFE UP ©. This is also the core component of our initiative and deals specifically with low to moderate-high episodes of mental distress and suicidal crisis which would otherwise commonly result in involuntary admission. The Safe U Self-Harm Mitigation Service also feeds directly into SAFE UP ©. Our 2026 flagship programmes of S.I.R.E.N (心鸣) and PCS (心启) will also provide early and late intervention support within the acute spectrum.
3. Recovery-oriented: Death Experience Workshop (for suicide postvention). In addition, Open Dialogue (OD) and Mental Imagery & Narrative Coping Programme (MINCP) constitute our Post-Suicidal Recovery Programmes (PSRPs).
什么是安全空间？
星洲守护心灵企划创建的亚洲首个“安全空间”是一个全面的系统，覆盖了一系列的原则和干预措施，同时也涵盖了心理健康、自杀干预以及生死教育三个重点领域。
我们工作的核心是培养志工和寻求者的责任感。我们保持低门槛，以便更多人能够及时获得帮助。我们还重视自主性的必要性，并专注于社区康复，尽可能减少强制入院。为了实现这些原则，我们采用了一种名为 BECA 的新策略，利用行为经济学改善与早中期自杀相关的决策。当一个人处于自杀倾向状态时，他们通常会受到负面思维和情绪的影响，并妨碍他们做出理性的决策。我们以“选择架构师”的身份介入并引导他们做出挽救生命的决策，同时始终考虑维护他们保持自主权。
为了确保我们能够现实且全面地评估自杀风险，我们创建了 ASM 模型。现有的风险分层模型在预测自杀方面表现极差。我们将重点从预测转向评估，不仅实际应用中更为必要，还有助于建立高度有效的支持系统，使其更加个性化、富有同理心，并以积极为导向。
BECA 和 ASM 可单独使用，也可根据具体情况结合使用，形成 BECA-ASM。
我们同样理解紧迫的自杀风险的重要性，这种风险极不稳定，可能在瞬间导致致命行为。随着我们社区特定任务团队的预试，我们也意识到制定一套衔接程序的必要性，以连接预防性干预和现场的紧急干预。因此，我们推出了 O/PRA—一个用于识别和应对临近自杀风险的 7 步筛选程序。O/PRA 具有动态性和高度针对性的特点，使我们的志愿者能够自信地进行干预，并提供超越心理健康急救和常规简要心理干预的缓解措施。
我们也定期举办一系列讲座和项目。然而，我们的旗舰项目尤为突出，专注于以人为本和高度体验感，涵盖了预防、急性干预和康复三个阶段。
预防阶段：Safe U 防护性自杀预防程序 © 、自杀与心理困扰守门员（SMDG）工作坊、情绪调节技巧工作坊（ERS ）、 不确定性容忍技巧工作坊（UTS）、 死亡体验工作坊 （针对存在危机）、First Light (初光) 前导介入、 Safe U 心理急救课程（PFA）。
急性谱系：
Safe U 自杀干预项目，也称为SAFE UP ©。这也是我们企划核心中的核心，专门针对精神困扰和自杀风险属于低至中高的族群。在没有此项目的情况下，这些人通常有可能会被强制留医。Safe U 自残行为缓解项目也将直接融入SAFE UP ©。我们也在2026年推出本年度的旗舰项目：S.I.R.E.N (心鸣) 和PCS (心启)，以应对早晚期的自杀干预需求。
康复导向：
死亡体验工作坊（针对自杀事后干预）。此外，开放对话 (OD) 方法和意象与叙事应对项目 (MINCP) 也形成本企划的自杀未遂康复项目。
Copyright © 2026 The SAFE U Initiative. All Rights Reserved.