There has been a lot in the media about suicide lately. Television shows like 13 Reasons Why have been prompting legitimate concern and generating conversation.
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In particular, there have been renewed calls for more suicide awareness activities.
But will all this hand-wringing reduce our escalating suicide rate?
No, it won’t.
The last decade has seen significant sums of Australian government money dedicated to suicide prevention awareness activities.
We’ve had websites, campaigns, summits and famous faces. Yet every year, we are seeing more people dying by suicide and more people making an attempt.
It is trite and simplistic to think that simply raising awareness will fix the problem.
Suicide is an extremely complex issue, involving myriad health, social, economic and personal factors that all need to be addressed before we can reduce our suicide rate to zero.
The good news is that we know what kind of changes we need to make to the system. Behind all the public discourse and social media chat, major changes are underway.
Research and lived experience clearly shows that the first steps to saving lives are to improve and connect mental health services, provide suicide prevention training to clinicians and key gatekeepers, tackle suicidal thoughts in schools, managing suicide in the media and minimising access to method.
Our work has shown that taking this systems approach - implementing all of these strategies at the same time within a community - will have a significant impact on suicide rates.
Thankfully, the Australian Ggvernment and a number of state governments are taking action now.
This year, 12 large Australian regions will trial this type of systemic approach to suicide prevention.
This is in addition to the four NSW-based Black Dog Institute LifeSpan trial regions supported by the Paul Ramsay Foundation and the NSW Government.
Newcastle is the first of the four NSW LifeSpan trial sites to go live with health professional and gatekeeper training already under way.
While the prospect of having a significant impact on peoples’ lives is exciting to say the least, the creation of solid and focused multi-agency networks will be the real game-changer.
For the first time, government health agencies will be formally connected to councils, schools, emergency services, workplaces and individuals with lived experience.
Evidence-based suicide prevention programs will be integrated into real community settings.
Researchers from Black Dog Institute and elsewhere will collect and analyse data in real time, guiding tailored improvements and enabling prioritisation of high-risk locations and populations.
All of this is happening now, with hundreds of people working behind the scenes to make this a reality.
Suicide prevention deserves more than more than PR stunts, talking heads and hashtags. It is this kind of real action that will save lives, and I am proud to be part of this national initiative.