21st European Symposium on Suicide and Suicidal Behaviour

Team members Sarah Waters and Lacey Croft presented at the 21st European Symposium on Suicide and Suicidal Behaviour ESSSB21 in Vilnius on 26th to 29th August 2026. Both papers were presented as part of a panel on “re-thinking work-related suicide” chaired by Dr Sally Spencer-Thomas.

This was an excellent, rich and multidisciplinary conference bringing together over 600 speakers from highly diverse perspectives and national contexts. It included excellent keynotes and some powerful presentations from bereaved family members on their experiences of suicide and institutional responses to the suicide death.

Prof Waters' paper focused on the relevance of social justice to work-related suicide and the importance of tackling shared working conditions and going beyond prevalent therapeutic approaches to workplace mental health. She suggested that work-related suicide might be seen as a matter of collective social justice that concerns the shared structures, conditions and norms that shape all our working lives.

Dr Croft presented observations from the Canadian context and in particular, on questions of visibility and invisibility in the recording of work-related suicide. Which suicide deaths are recorded institutionally and why? What does this mean for our understanding of suicide deaths amongst groups such as platform, gig or undocumented workers who do not make the institutional record?

Both team members took part with others in the meeting by IASP’s Special Interest Group on work-related suicide.