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In this week’s episode:

• Build cultures where wellbeing isn’t a poster – but a lived behaviour. Leaders in practices must go beyond “our door is open” and actively get to know their teams, embed psychological safety into policy, and treat mental health with the same seriousness as clinical safety.
• Technology can be a compassionate safety net – but not the whole solution. Ripple shows how digital tools can interrupt crisis moments, but they work best when paired with real human connection. Practices should combine digital wellbeing tools with regular check-ins, mentoring and supportive conversations.
• Language shapes how safe people feel. Using clear, non-judgemental terms like died by suicide helps remove stigma and opens the door to honest conversations. When veterinary teams adopt compassionate, accurate wording, it creates a culture where people feel safer speaking up.
• Small interventions can be lifesaving ones. Ripple’s forced “pause and breathe” moment – often initially met with frustration – has led people to get help and attribute the interruption to saving their life. Veterinary workplaces can take inspiration by creating micro-interventions: structured breaks, moments of pause, peer check-ins, and safe escalation pathways.

A deeply human conversation with Alice Hendy, MBE, exploring how the tragic loss of her brother led to the creation of Ripple, a digital tool saving lives worldwide by intervening during moments of crisis – and what this means for mental health support across veterinary teams and beyond.

Additional Guest Spotlights

• Recommend Resource: This episode we hear from Jason Spendelow. Jason recommends the book Self-Compassion as a practical, uplifting resource for anyone caught in cycles of self-criticism, offering a more supportive and effective way to navigate difficulty.
  
  
• Next Episode Sneak Peak: Next episode, we sit down with Matt Madden of Heedly to explore how purpose-driven marketing can help vet practices attract the right clients, communicate with clarity, build trust through authentic storytelling, and protect team wellbeing by having the confidence to say no.
  
  
  

Show Notes

• Out every other week on your favourite podcast platform.
• Presented by Jack Peploe: Veterinary IT Expert, Certified Ethical Hacker, CEO of Veterinary IT Services and dog Dad to the adorable Puffin.
• Alice’s journey has been marked by a personal tragedy and the will to bring hope to millionsaround the world.​​In November 2020, she lost her brother, Josh, to suicide at the age of 21. Josh had beenresearching over the internet techniques to take his own life – and he was not alone.
• Globally, alarming 1.2 million online searches linked to suicide occur each month.​ Determined to ensure more help and support is given to individuals searching for harmful content online, Alice set up a tech charity called R;pple is a digital tool designed to intercept online searches related to self-harm and suicide, providing mental health resources to individuals at a time when they are most vulnerable.
• With millions of downloads world wide, R;pple is intercepting thousands of harmful online searches, continually saving lives from suicide.​​ Alice’s story resonates strongly with anyone who has faced mental health challenges, has been affected by suicide or cares for the safety of others.
• Please find out more about R;pple here

Transcription

Jack Peploe:

Coming up on Modern Veterinary Practice Podcast

Alice Hendy:

I lost Josh on the 25th of November, 2020. He was 21 years old when he decided he didn’t want to be here anymore, and Josh was my only sibling. And if I’m being completely honest, it is without doubt the worst thing that could have ever happened to me in my life, which makes the world quite a scary place actually, because anything else that happens to me now is nothing really in comparison to what’s already taken place. When I looked through my brother’s devices after he did take his life, I was looking for answers. I was looking for why’s, why was this his decision? What was so bad in his life that he believed this was his best option? And when I did that, I found that he had been going on the internet and he’d been searching for how he could end his life.

Jack Peploe:

Welcome to the Modern Veterinary Practice Podcast. I’m your host and veterinary IT expert, Jack Peploe. In this episode, I’ll be welcoming Alice Hendy, MBE, founder and CEO of Ripple Suicide Prevention and Global Cybersecurity Specialist. We’ll be talking about how technology can become a force for empathy and lifesaving intervention, exploring the story behind Ripple, how digital tools can protect people in moments of crisis, and what it means to make the online world a safer, more compassionate place.

Alice Hendy:

The interview, I’m Alice. I set up a charity called Ripple Suicide Prevention about four years ago now, and alongside my role at the charity, I also work full-time as a global cybersecurity specialist for a large consultancy firm as well. So my life really revolves around two computers all hours of the day, predominantly around technology.

Jack Peploe:

Alice, it’s absolutely fantastic having you on the Robin Veterinary Practice Podcast. How are you doing today?

Alice Hendy:

Yes, good, thank you. Lots of storms down here in Portsmouth at the moment, so just trying to control my animals really from the thunder and the lightning going on.

Jack Peploe:

So previously, obviously before we caught up, you’ve shared your story on some of the biggest stages, but I think what makes it so powerful is how grounded and human it is with something which I want to go into is you turned one of the worst things a person can experience into something that’s sort of now saving lives around the world, which I think is truly amazing. Today I wanted to sort of talk about what happens when technology is driven by empathy. We’ll explore how Ripple is using digital tools to intervene in life or death moments, the broader challenges of mental health in our online lives, and what role we have to play in making the internet and the world sort of a safer place. Does that sound okay?

Alice Hendy:

Yeah, sounds great. Happy to get into that.

Jack Peploe:

Cool. Well, let’s talk about your sort of awful situation, which is the positive of you founded Ripple after the unimaginable loss of your brother, Josh. When you first started this journey, did you imagine it would become what it is today and what was the moment you knew it had to be something bigger?

Alice Hendy:

To be honest, I had absolutely no idea that Ripple would grow to the level it has today. I lost Josh on the 25th of November, 2020. He was 21 years old when he decided he didn’t want to be here anymore, and Josh was my only sibling. And if I’m being completely honest, it is without doubt the worst thing that could have ever happened to me in my life, which makes the world quite a scary place actually, because anything else that happens to me now is nothing really in comparison to what’s already taken place. When I looked through my brother’s devices after he did take his life, I was looking for answers. I was looking for why’s, why was this his decision? What was so bad in his life that he believed this was his best option? And when I did that, I found that he had been going on the internet and he’d been searching for how he could end his life.

It was those searches that he was conducting that ultimately provided Josh with tips, encouragement, step-by-step instructions, even on how he could take his life. And it did strike me at that point, okay, Josh can’t be the only person here that’s this low and that desperate and searching for this kind of content on the internet. So I came up with what I thought at the time would be a solution or something to intervene and interrupt people at that pivotal moment of crisis. And if I’m honest, I thought, if this helps one person, I’ll be happy. It gave me a purpose. It gave me a reason to get up in the morning in the depths of despair and grief, really after losing Josh, and it’s grown beyond my wildest expectations, I just cannot believe it. This was something I started off in my bedroom and it’s now a fully functioning organisation with full-time staff and saving lives every day. So yeah, I still pinch myself really. That’s

Jack Peploe:

Amazing. Now, we often blame the internet for worsening mental health, but you are using tech as the intervention. How do you see the role of digital tolls evolving in suicide prevention and wider mental health support?

Alice Hendy:

I think it’s a really tricky subject because there is lots of ways that technology is hugely helpful, hugely useful, and the way in which Ripple operates as an example, intervenes somebody conducting a harmful online search in their moment of crisis, that can only be a good thing. But when we go down the roots of providing people with advice and guidance and support, how effective actually is technology in doing so? Because sometimes people need that human connection. Sometimes people need to have that conversation with a real person to talk about how they’re feeling. And can technology really do that? At the moment, I think it’s about finding a balance, and it’s about providing people with a combination of tools in order to get the support that they need, perhaps through technology, but also through human interaction and empathy that we get from having conversations with our loved ones. So a balance I would say is the answer to that question.

Jack Peploe:

Yeah, no, absolutely. Now, ripple obviously doesn’t block content. It pauses and offers help. That might seem like a small intervention, but why is that moment of pause so important? Psychologically,

Alice Hendy:

When somebody is experiencing a moment of crisis, they’re not thinking straight. Their mind is elsewhere and they’re looking for harmful content often on the internet. Ripple intervenes, but immediately provides a short breathing exercise that people can’t click off of. They’re forced to stop, they’re forced to pause, and then once that breathing exercise is finished, they’re presented with different mental health options that they can find. Now, our research has shown from using the Ripple tool that sometimes that pause is all it takes for that person to think, okay, regroup here. What am I doing? I obviously need to get some support. Interestingly, the feedback that I’ve got from a lot of people, to be honest, is people who have been suicidal and have been searching for this material in the past and have been intervened by Ripple and then go on to get the support when they are first intervened by Ripple, they are annoyed. I’ve annoyed them, I’ve interrupted them in terms of what they want to do.

I’ve paused their thinking and I’ve made them go down a different path. And the feedback is at the time, how annoying is Ripple, right? But then it’s several months down the road when they’ve actually got the support that they need that they look back and they say, do you know what? At the time I was really cross that this interrupted me, but thank goodness it did because I’m now getting that support that I need. So having that moment is really important. And sometimes that is all it takes to redirect someone’s thoughts to something more hopeful.

Jack Peploe:

No, absolutely. Now, search engines and platforms have immense influence over what we see. What responsibility do you think they bear in addressing harmful content, and do you feel they’re doing enough?

Alice Hendy:

Huge, huge, huge responsibility. They’re not doing anywhere near enough. We do have the introduction of the Online Safety Act, which has come into play, but it doesn’t go anywhere near far enough. We need to be holding individuals, platforms, social media, giants to account when they are hosting harmful material, and they need to get much, much better at not hosting it in the first place. And if it is found on there, removing it in a timely, efficient manner, which at the moment they’re not doing the world of artificial intelligence, technology is only getting more and more sophisticated and is a continuous cycle, unfortunately, of harmful material that does exist on the internet alongside all of the stuff that we know and love and that connects us. So we do need to regulate. The government needs to act, but also act quickly. At the moment, they’re very, very slow to do anything, and this is urgent. People are losing their lives on a daily basis. This needs to be happening now.

Jack Peploe:

And I mean on the government question, because that’s all government point that you raised there, are they not doing enough because they just don’t understand?

Alice Hendy:

I think there’s potentially a combination of factors. It could be a lack of understanding, it could be a lack of an awareness in terms of the pace in which technology is evolving, particularly at the moment with AI and machine learning, I think they’re scared because some of these organisations are monsters. They are enormous, and they’re taking them on. I think they’re potentially afraid of the backlash because social media is so widely used among everybody. And if they were to implement harsher controls on some of these platforms, what would the reaction be of the general public? Because people would be angry. But I think it’s a case of, again, finding a balance, but doing so quickly. It’s a case of working collaboratively with these big social giants and tech organisations to actually say, look, we want to work with you here to make the internet a safer place. But again, it’s not just the government here to blame or at fault, it’s also these social media companies, these other organisations that exist that continue to host this material. They also need to be acting faster and quicker and doing more.

Jack Peploe:

Yeah, no, absolutely. Now, for people listening who work in leadership roles, so vet many teams, schools or businesses, what are some practical ways we can make environments safer, more open and more responsive to mental health needs?

Alice Hendy:

I think the first thing really that leadership needs to be thinking about is actually having a culture. That’s right. It’s all very well having a boss or a leader say, we care about mental health, but you really need to live and breathe that. Have an open door policy. Make sure that you are taking the time to get to know your staff on a deeper level rather than just your workers. They are people. They’ve all got things going on in their lives that you should be able to help them and support them with from a work perspective if they need it. So I think embedding a culture that is open and honest and inclusive and encourages people to open up is really, really important. There’s lots of practical things that can also be done. Things like having team building exercises and team building days, making sure that people are not getting overworked and burnt out, keeping an eye on hours workload, making sure that that’s spread out evenly. Of course, deploying the likes of technological interventions like Ripple also helps if people are experiencing a crisis. And also in the policies, in the policies and the procedures of the practices. This is something, mental health is something that needs to be included in that, really on the same stance as health and safety or fire safety as an example. And at the moment it’s not.

Jack Peploe:

No, absolutely. Now, going back to Ripple, because this is actually something I really was keen to ask was how important was language in the design of Ripple? What kind of messaging did you find made people feel seen rather than shamed or shut down?

Alice Hendy:

It’s really important. Language is a huge factor that can actually increase the stigma surrounding the topic. So we had to get this right. We worked with advisory boards, lived experience panels, people who have been in that place, that dark place to understand what would’ve worked for them and perhaps what wouldn’t. In terms of some of the language, it’s avoiding terms that do stigmatise the topic. Things like permit suicide as an example, is a huge no-no in this area. Lots of people might use the term commit suicide and think nothing of it, but actually

That indicates that suicide is a crime. You don’t commit cancer, you don’t commit a stroke, and therefore you don’t commit suicide. Instead, it’s things such as died by suicide or took their own life. In terms of the wording on Ripple, we wanted people to feel empowered and that they deserve the hope and the support that they’re getting. A big piece of feedback that we received is when people are feeling suicidal, they feel unworthy. They feel like they don’t deserve to have support or people to help them. So it was really crucial for us to get that right. And in the end, our wording became, you deserve to feel hope at the top. And once that headline was announced, it’s kind of the immediate mental health support services that people can access afterwards that’s found underneath. So it’s constantly evolving, but language hugely important.

Jack Peploe:

Absolutely. Now, obviously picking on your career in cybersecurity, which is very logic driven, what’s it been like blending that world with something as emotionally charged as suicide prevention?

Alice Hendy:

That’s a great question. It’s difficult. Being completely honest. I spend my day with two devices, two laptops. One moment I could be talking about suicide prevention, and the next moment I could be talking about phishing emails. It’s very, very odd. I think in a sense, my role in cybersecurity and my role in it, I look back on my life and I fell into that. I didn’t grow up at school thinking that I wanted to work in IT or cybersecurity. I very much fell into it. But now I look back and I think I almost fell into it for a reason, because without that career, I would never have come up with this actually very simple idea of intervening in people’s moment of crisis following the loss of my brother. So as cliche as it sounds, it almost feels like it was meant to be for me.

Jack Peploe:

No, absolutely. With millions of downloads and thousands of interventions, ripple is clearly making a difference. But sort of numbers aside, has there been a moment, a message or a story that reminded you why you do this?

Alice Hendy:

Yeah, there has, and it links to a young man who lives locally to me in Portsmouth, who reached out to me about three years ago now and asked if he could do an interview with me about my experiences of losing Josh. It was only maybe perhaps a year down the line that he told me that Ripple had actually interrupted him at his moment of crisis, and he attributes that to saving his life, that guy, and he’s very happy for me to name him. He’s called Harrison. He actually now is a huge family friend of ours. He’s even set up a football club in the name of Ripple that where lots of men, I think we’ve got over 80 men on the books now, regularly play football against other charity teams, get together, exercise, have a chat, have socials under the name of Ripple FC that he has created. So it’s literally pretty unbelievable how the pop-up came up for him when he was suicidal, saved his life, and it’s almost like he’s now repaying us by running our football team and being involved in our charity and doing video bits and pieces for us as well. So that’s pretty special.

Jack Peploe:

That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Now obviously, you’ve built something extraordinary from a place of heartbreak. What keeps you going when it gets hard, and how do you protect your own mental wellbeing while carrying the weight of this mission?

Alice Hendy:

That’s probably the hardest question that you’ve asked me today if I’m honest, because I’m still learning. I think I preach to others on how to look after their mental health and what they should do. And if I’m being totally honest with you, I don’t really do that myself enough.

Jack Peploe:

No, no.

Alice Hendy:

So it’s still a learning curve for me. I think when I first lost Josh, my immediate reaction to cope with it was to work and throw myself into being busy and creating ripple and carrying on with work. And I’ve done that continuously for four and a half years. There will be absolutely a moment when my body and my mind probably says to me, look, enough is enough, you need to take a break. But at the moment, that’s my way of coping. That’s my way of dealing with things. I keep busy, I keep occupied, and I keep challenging myself. And that is working for me at the moment. I think if you ask me that question again next year or in a few years, the answer might be very different.

Jack Peploe:

So what’s next for Ripple and what’s your bigger vision? Not just for the tool, but for how we as a society talk about, respond to and prevent suicide?

Alice Hendy:

From a ripple standpoint, we are moving into the world of classification. We want to classify Armful material on the internet and be the leaders in that field, particularly relating to self-harm and suicide. So we’re using AI models, machine learning models to make that happen, and that’s work in progress at the moment. We’ve also expanded ripple’s capabilities so that we aren’t just interrupting harmful searches to do with self-harm and suicide, but actually also other mental health conditions and life challenges that people go through to intervene at an earlier point and to get them the best bespoke support that they need. For example, substance misuse, gambling, addictions, eating disorders, and so on. So we’re interrupting upstream to get people more bespoke support there. In terms of what’s next for this world, regulation is absolutely crucial, and an understanding in this area, particularly from the government, is just pivotal. I think at the moment. We’ve got the likes of chat, GPT, all these AI tools coming out, left, right, and center, and not many of them actually are regulated. So they are hosting harmful material on a day-to-day basis and aiding people in taking their lives. So I’d like to see regulation become a priority in this area to get people the support that they need, and that needs to happen in partnership with the big corporates and the big social media giants as well.

Jack Peploe:

No, absolutely. Well, Alice, thank you so much for sharing your story, your insights, and your strength for us today. You’ve shown us that tech can be more than efficiency, it can be deeply human. Now, for listeners who want to support Ripple, learn more or bring it into their organisations, where’s the best place for them to go?

Alice Hendy:

So our website is ripple suicide prevention.com, and we’re also on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube as well. Or you can go old school and drop us an email, which is info@ripplesuicideprevention.com, and we’d love to hear from you.

Jack Peploe:

That’s fantastic. And obviously we’ll put those order in the show notes. Thank you for all you are doing, disabled lives and change how we think about mental health in the digital age. Really, really appreciate your time today.

Alice Hendy:

Thanks very much, Jack. Thanks for having me.

Jack Peploe:

Every week we ask professionals and experts to suggest a best business resource for our listeners. This week’s recommendation is from Jason Spendelow.

Jason Spendelow:

I would recommend a book by Kirsten Niff called Self-Compassion, because it relates really nicely to what I mentioned about the strategy of normalising self-Compassion is a really interesting and useful way to look at yourself and respond to yourself in terms of adversity or difficulty. And for me, it’s a really nice alternative to excessive self-criticism. And when I started to learn about self-compassion, it was quite a light bulb moment for me because I could say, ah, this is why excessive self-criticism just can’t work and will never work. I was pretty guilty of that a lot myself, and this is a really nice way to approach difficulty and adversity failure and whatnot from a much more helpful perspective in a very practical sense. So for anyone who’s perhaps struggling with excessive self-criticism, this is a really nice resource to have a look at. It’s very practical and it gives you a really nice alternative perspective to just continuously getting stuck in this loop of excessive self-criticism.

Jack Peploe:

Can we Up next week, we welcome Matt Madden, director at Heedly and marketing expert helping vet practices grow with purpose. Matt shares his journey from global brands like L’Oreal to redefining how independent vet clinics communicate, connect, and scale. We explore how to attract the right clients rather than just more why clarity beats complexity and messaging and how to build trust through authentic storytelling. Matt also dives into the psychology behind great marketing, the real role of AI in shaping client experiences and the power of saying no to protect your team’s wellbeing.

Matt Madden:

Yeah, I think something that’s incredibly powerful that’s often overlooked is the ability to say no to certain clients. I think there’s an interesting dynamic within the vet space, which is it is an obligation to help animals that need veterinary care, and I totally understand that. I do think, however, as we all know, it’s a for-profit industry, and with that, there is the opportunity to make sure that you are working with people that also really care about the wellness and health of their own pets. And when you have that sort of collaborative relationship with animal wellbeing and healthcare, it makes the ecosystem and community that you are building much more effective and powerful, and actually, hopefully that can grow into a much bigger network. So I think when you start to scale that up beyond an independent, and actually when multiple people start thinking that way, then hopefully we get a slight culture shift towards a more collaborative approach with healthcare.

Jack Peploe:

That’s it for this episode. All links and recommendations we talked about are in the show notes. Don’t forget to subscribe and share the podcast if you found it useful. In the meantime, thanks for listening and see you next time.