Sharon Mallon BSc, PhD, SFHEA, is a Senior Lecturer in Mental Health in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies at The Open University. Her teaching areas include critical approaches to mental health theory and practice. She was awarded a PhD for her qualitative study of the impact of student suicide from the perspective of their friends and was one of the authors of the RaPSS study (Response and Prevention in Student Suicide). Her research interests have developed to include social approaches to understanding death by suicide and exploring the wider impact of suicide bereavement on different bereaved groups.