'I asked strangers for letters of hope so others won't go through what my brother did'

Ben West had been getting his things ready for school when he heard his mum's screams from the top of the stairs.

He rushed up to his younger brother Sam's room to find him unconscious, and began 20 minutes of CPR to try and save him.

Sam had taken his own life after being diagnosed with clinical depression - he was 15 years old.

"It was just it was like I woke up the day afterwards and was suddenly an adult, I lost my childhood," Ben, who was 17 then, tells BBC Newsbeat.

Now 25 years old, mental health campaigner Ben launched a new project to mark eight years since Sam took his own life.

The response has been phenomenal, he says.

• Listen to more from Ben and others on Newsbeat's special programme about mental health

Reasons to Stay is a suicide prevention project based around a website.

Strangers submit letters, written for people struggling with their mental health.

"It's a little corner of the internet where people who are in Sam's position that are feeling low or feeling disconnected and potentially suicidal can go and read a letter from a stranger," explains Ben.

The letters - which are checked by clinical professionals - refresh each time you visit the website and contain a message of support or hope.

"Social media gets a bad rap, it's full of bad things," says Ben.

"But there is something amazing in the ability to connect people with strangers that care."

Ben says Reasons to Stay has delivered about 250,000 letters in seven days.

"I wonder how many 15-year-old boys have been sat in their room going on to our website and finding a reason to stay," he says.

"That, on a personal level, is pretty special."

Ben believes the simplicity of the concept is what's caused it to be so popular.

"Because it's a stranger, you don't know their situation, you can't tell them how to fix it," he says.

"So the only thing you can rely on is connection and warmth and kindness."

Ben now works full-time to campaign for mental health awareness, a role that has seen him work with prime ministers, schools and even write a book.

He said an "outpouring of love" from the community, including his school friends, helped him realise he could make a difference.

"What's really important is that we don't keep suicide hidden in the shadows.

"We don't have it as just another subject that comes up occasionally that's really awkward to talk about, it is something that happens," he says.

According to official statistics, 6,190 suicides were registered in England and Wales in 2024 - the most recent year for which figures are available.

About three-quarters of those deaths were males.

The north-east of England had the highest suicide rate - the number of deaths per 100,000 people - while London's was the lowest out of all the English regions.

In Scotland, which records separate data, officials estimated the total number of probable suicides had decreased in 2024 compared with 2023.

The figures also suggested fewer men and fewer women had taken their own lives in 2024, but men were much more likely to do so.

In Northern Ireland, officials said the three-year average for registered suicides had risen from 220.3 in 2020 and 2022 to 238.0 in 2024.

Last year the NHS launched its 10-year plan to improve mental health services, which Ben says he will be looking at "very closely".

It pledges to develop more dedicated emergency departments, expand support teams in schools and colleges and boost numbers of mental health workers.

"We will hold the government to account to make sure that this issue is taken as seriously as it deserves," says Ben.

"Because there are too many people out there like Sam.

"There are people on waiting lists right now that won't make it to the front."

For now, Ben hopes Reasons to Stay is making a difference.

He says he has had "so much feedback" - including 11,000 messages in just one day from people praising the idea and sharing how it had moved them.

"You reflect back on to how all this started and you think if Sam had sat in his room that night and seen someone share a random social media clip of a guy launching a project like this, and he'd clicked on the link just to see what was going on.

"He would have read a letter from a stranger.

"In that moment, what could be different?"

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