Recommendations by sector and function

Cumberland Council

Continue the shift towards prevention, encouraging early help and reducing stigma for boys and men, prioritising life stages and groups at highest risk (including adolescence, early adulthood, working-age men and those affected by unemployment or isolation).

Embed postvention as a core prevention function, ensuring timely, trauma-informed support for individuals, families, schools, workplaces and communities affected by suicide.

Agree a concise set of important shared outcomes and indicators for boys’ and men’s wellbeing, including access, waiting times, continuity, postvention reach and inequalities by place.

Embed proportionate evaluation within new and existing initiatives, enabling learning, adaptation and scaling of what works.

Report progress publicly, ensuring transparency and accountability to communities

Strengthen early, relational support within schools, particularly for boys at risk of exclusion or persistent absence, with a focus on understanding behaviour, supporting neurodiversity and maintaining engagement in education.

NHS health and mental health services

Develop low-threshold, face-to-face access points (e.g. walk-in or drop-in mental health hubs) in key towns.

Maintain in-person routes alongside digital offers.

Simplify and increase flexibility of referral pathways, enabling referrals from GPs, schools, employers, VCSE organisations and families, and reducing repeated re-assessment or “bouncing” between services.

Strengthen crisis response and follow-up, ensuring empathic first contact, continuity after crisis and proactive re-engagement.

Improve neurodiversity pathways for all genders and ages, including workforce capacity, earlier identification and practical support for individuals and families across the life course.

Improving access to timely assessment and family support, strengthening links between schools and mental health services.

Supporting the voluntary and community sector

Formally support and connect peer-led and community-based approaches, recognising their role as entry points into the wider system rather than standalone solutions.

Strengthen coordination across VCSE providers, including shared referral routes, and clearer links to statutory services

Use visible, stigma-breaking community activity (e.g. public conversations, peer spaces, awareness events) to normalise help-seeking and reduce isolation.

Train trusted community figures to talk about mental health (e.g. barbers, sports leaders, employers, e.g. funding BarberTalk training programmes).

Encourage and support community and voluntary sectors to access additional funding opportunities.

Education and schools

Prioritise early, support for boys at risk of exclusion.

Reduce reliance on permanent exclusions by strengthening in-school support, early help links and family engagement.

Embed emotional literacy and help-seeking education within the curriculum, delivered in age-appropriate, gender-sensitive ways.

Actively raise aspiration and widen horizons, including exposure to diverse career pathway, and positive male role models from a range of backgrounds.

Employment and workplaces

Employers should recognise their workplaces as key prevention settings, equipping managers and trusted staff to identify distress, provide early support and signpost effectively.

Employers should support encourage diverse access into employment, including men into health, education, and administration.

Workplaces should lead the way in recognising and supporting men to be joint-primary caregiver.

Justice system (including prison and probation)

Strengthen the health–justice interface, ensuring continuity of mental health, substance misuse and neurodiversity support during custody, probation and transition back into the community.

Integrate family-focused and relational support into justice pathways to reduce intergenerational harm and repeat cycles of disadvantage.