A longstanding Mental Heath Champion for Birmingham and Britain
Summery of this page:
- Simon Morrall’s Maiden speech was on Suicide Prevention.
- Ran the Half Marathon for Campaign Against Living Miserably.
- Hosted a Suicide prevention event at the Council House with CALM, Samaritans.
- The Only Councillor to donate his £700 pay rise to Charity during Covid 19.
- A passionate update on Mental Health post covid in November 2021.
- Was part of the Child’s Mental Head inquiry in 2022/2023
- Nominated to Attend Bucking Place for his work.
Madden Speech on Suicide Prevention.
In November 2018 Simon delivered his maiden speech on male suicide to Birmingham City Council. His speech convinced the chmaber to vote unanimously to adopt Birmingham’s first Suicide Prevention Strategy. [12][13][14] During the speech Cllr Morrall spoke of loosing his best friend to suicide, who was his political opposite. He said “In a time when political has become more divided and extreme, he reminds me why I got into politics, we would debate all night, putting the world to rights over a pint and a packet of crisps.” He told the council chamber how suicide was the biggest killer of men aged under 50 and how someone takes their lives too suicide every 2 hours.[13]
In the UK, the single biggest killer of men under 45 is suicide, and Cllr Morrall spoke of losing his friend to suicide in 2016:
Cllr Morrall concluded his address saying:
“As a largest council in Europe, we should strengthen our resolve as a city, and have a zero tolerance to suicide. We should aim to smash the stigma surrounding mental health and as the second city, become the gold standard for the rest of the country to follow.”
Running the Half Marathon for CALM.
All funds raised compliment the donations Simon’s allowance, and with the government’s announcement of a Suicide Prevention Minister in the same month, it has made everything worthwhile! Thanks to your support, I completed the Birmingham half marathon in a time of 2:12:36 which exceeded all expectations!
Hosting an Event on Suicide Prevention.
Before Simon’s big speech in the Council chamber, he prepared a two hour presentation on suicide prevention at the Council House in Birmingham.
The event was co-hosted alongside Samaritans, Papyrus and CALM to a room full of senior Birmingham City Council officials and staff.
The only Councillor to donate his pay rise during Covid 19.
Cllr Morrall donated a portion of his Councillor’s allowance to the male suicide charity Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM). [12]He also raised money for CALM by running his first half marathon, the Great Birmingham Run, in October 2018 [12][15]
Simon later donated his councillor pay rise to charity during Covid-19 panic, and was one of only three to do so. [16] Stating “I personally cannot justify a pay rise in the wake of a pandemic that has ruined so many livelihoods and small businesses in this city. [17] “As somebody who runs a small business outside of this and during the current economic crisis, I do have some issues with giving ourselves a four per cent [pay rise].[16] He later donated the £700 to Samaritans. [16]
Supporting Local Mental Health Hubs
In 2022 working with Netflix’s After Life, CALM donated a bench to Cofton Park to get people to talk about their mental health Cllr Morrall said: “I’m absolutely overjoyed to see CALM recognise Cofton park as an ideal place for one of these benches. [14]
An Inquiry into Children’s Mental Health
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Nominated to Attend Buckingham Palace for his work!
There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don’t look even slightly believable. If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum, you need to be sure there isn’t anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary, making this the first true generator on the Internet. It uses a dictionary of over 200 Latin words, combined with a handful of model sentence structures, to generate Lorem Ipsum which looks reasonable. The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc.
Gallery
Watch – Simon Speak below:
Simon was later nominated to attend the Queen’s Garden Party at Buckingham Palace in 2022 for my work around Mental Health.
