TORFAEN Assembly Member Lynne Neagle has urged the Welsh Government to ensure all schools in Wales use new guidance on talking about suicide and self-harm with its pupils.

The new guidance is designed to provide teachers and professionals who regularly come into contact with young people a quick and accessible guide that focuses on early intervention and the safe management of self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

Ms Neagle, who chairs the National Assembly’s Children, Young People and Education Committee, used a question to Education Minister Kirsty Williams AM to ask what steps she is taking to ensure all schools and local authorities are aware of the guidance and are actively promoting it.

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"I very much welcome the excellent guidance that has been published," she said. "I’m also pleased the minister has made a commitment to including the guidance in the new framework that is being published on a whole-school approach to mental health.

"But in the meantime, what can we do to ensure that all schools and all local authorities are aware of the guidance and are actively promoting it?"

Ms Williams, in response, said there had been significant interest in the new guidance on its website and numerous requests for further copies of the guidance from individual schools.

She added it would be promoted at a forthcoming conference of secondary school headteachers.