Bean Research was commissioned by the Premier League to evaluate Together Against Suicide, a partnership with Samaritans that piloted a matchday suicide prevention intervention across 11 clubs.
The pilot was built around three aims: raising awareness of mental health and suicide; reducing stigma around the topic; and increasing access to and uptake of support services. To achieve these aims, each club provided match-day in-person support for fans at Premier League games. Alongside this support, the initiative also provided training for staff and club stakeholders and ran an awareness-raising campaign.
Bean worked alongside the Premier League and the Clubs from the outset, starting with a light touch process evaluation to assess how the club-specific programmes were developing in a complex multi-partner initiative (involving 93 mental health partners).
Throughout the pilot the structure of evidence capture evolved with the clubs. This flexibility enabled Bean to see what was working, where and how, and share this information with the clubs informing design and delivery in real time.
The evaluation report was delivered in June 2026, showing clear progress across all three aims:
- There was awareness the campaign had permeated across Premier League fans, while social media around the initiative reached tens of millions of people.
- There was distinct evidence of a reduction in stigma across clubs, that resulted in a greater uptake of available support.
- There was engagement with the match-day support offered by clubs, with large numbers of fan interacting on match day with the support offered.
These findings have fed into the programme for the 2026/7 season, now involving DHSC and NHSE, as well as local statutory mental health partners.
Bean continues as its Evaluation and Learning partner as Together Against Suicide transitions from pilot to established programme.
