Dealing with self-harm

What steps to take to support your child

As a parent you can speak with your child’s school and your child’s GP. There are also a range of excellent information sources and helplines available for both parents and young people. If you are worried your child is putting their life at risk by self-harming, call 999 or take them to A&E if possible.

Explore the numerous resources available to parents in the section below and our self-harm resources page.

Preventing access to self-harm content online

Parental controls usually include the option to prevent access to self-harm and suicide websites. The mobile operators use 18+ filtering as standard, this includes suicide and self-harm. With the recent focus on wellbeing online, many of the most popular social media platforms have provided guidance and implemented stricter policies to tackle the issue of self-harm on their platforms. 

From preventing posts glorifying it to providing resources and access to emotional support helplines, there is a range of ways that it is being addressed. If you are interested in learning more about what they are doing, here are links to their guidance:

• TikTok
• Snapchat
• Meta
• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube 
• Twitch

When you are out and about be aware that not all public wifi has filters applied.

It is worth bearing in mind that no controls are 100% guaranteed to block all unwanted content, but there are additional actions you can take, such as disabling the Google preview pane which will prevent unwanted images from appearing when you search.

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