Community Engagement Northern NSW

Suicide Prevention in Community - It’s all about connection

Valuing Community Engagement

Lifeline is supported through strong connections with local government, community organisations and through the commitment of local community leaders and members.

Lifeline promotes the capacity of local communities to develop, implement and sustain their own suicide safer community. We recognise this is a continuous journey that allows communities to take responsibility for their own development, bringing in local resources and approaches.

'We believe suicide prevention is everyone’s business. Through our collaborative work and connection with community, we are all building suicide safer communities'.

One way we do this is as the lead agency for the Lismore Suicide Prevention Collaborative and the Tweed Heads Suicide Prevention Community Action Group. The Collaborative & Action Group promote building the capacity of local communities to develop, implement and sustain a suicide safer community. They acknowledge that this is a continuous journey which allows communities to take responsibility for their own development, whilst bringing in local subject matter experts, resources and approaches.

The Collaborative and Action Group supports the community by:

Creating suicide prevention community connections
Implementing various community-led actions
delivering presentations that start suicide prevention conversations
coordinating and delivering suicide prevention programs and training for community members, service providers, businesses and community groups.

Suicide Prevention Training

Training is a key element in saving lives. Being able to identify and intervene when people are having thoughts of suicide is a skill for life. Some of our programs include:

Mind Your Mates: 60 min presentation
safeTALK: half-day in-person
Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST): 2 x day in-person
Accidental Counsellor: online and in-person options available
Mental Health First Aid

Livingworks SafeTALK

A half day suicide prevention awareness program: 3.5 HRS

What you will take away from the workshop:

Recognise that invitations for help are often overlooked
Move beyond common tendencies to miss, dismiss, and avoid conversations around suicide
Notice and respond to situations in which thoughts of suicide may be present
Apply the basic TALK steps (Tell, Ask, Listen, and Keep -safe)

Livingworks ASIST

2 Day training workshop in Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training:

What to expect:

ASIST aims to enhance caregivers’ abilities to help a person at risk to avoid suicide
Participants learn to recognise when someone may be at risk of suicide and respond in ways that help increase immediate safety and link them to help
Extensive evaluations of ASIST outcomes have shown that participants demonstrate increased intervention skills and that ASIST training has led to positive changes in both knowledge and attitudes about suicide

Find out more about our training courses and see upcoming training dates

Learn more about Lifeline Training