Driving Community Change

Driving Community Change

As Australians, we live in one of the richest countries in the world. We are leaders in genomic medicine, soil-less farms even cashless transactions yet, we still can’t manage to get our heads around, how to deal with the reality of suicide and what’s needed when approaching it collectively.

Data shows that death by suicide has more than doubled the Vic road toll deaths since 2013. With 2016's most recent stats confirming 291 road fatalities opposed to around 630 suicides. (possibly even more as suicide tends to be under-reported as a result of uncertainty around coronial inquests)

Yet, Where are the billboards here in Victoria asking people to 'slow down and save lives with self care practises'? Where are the businesses implementing loss of points for not adhering to or attending regular Mental Health care Programs? Where are our 'don’t drive the desk tired- get out of your seat' campaigns? Where do we 'identify the warning signs'?

Thankfully, The people of Scotland have taken their suicide statistics seriously, becoming not only innovative but industry leaders, demonstrating a suicide reduction in excess of 20% with the number of suicides and suspected suicides within the Scottish Highlands seeing a reduction of 34%.

So, what did they do?

They created the 'Choose Life' National Strategy action plan to prevent suicide. 

This strategy required the community to come together to help tackle the issue and reinforced the importance of education and training activities within communities, workplaces and services.

They set their structure around themes that contribute directly to the delivery of their National Outcome, enabling people to live longer, healthier lives.

Some of their key themes included:

 - Responding and Engaging with people in distress in a more compassionate way

 -Forming and Implementing regular training programs to ensure all front-line workers have the necessary information, skills and attitudes.

  - Raising awareness and providing education to the wider community across multiple platforms to compliment the mindset shift to enable better understanding and support to those who communicate suicidal thoughts.

It is clear to say, Scotland’s “Choose Life” program has been effective!

Government and private enterprises have successfully partnered at all levels to support their nation’s mental health which clearly demonstrates that they are in the business of saving lives and set to create a suicide-free Scotland.

So, Whilst the current media focus is on extra marital relationships and questions around party members morality, we as a community need to focus on the relationship that heals. Communicating and validating that one’s life is indeed worth living and enjoying.

And, Our current approach is just not effective enough.

We cannot expect to find some magical pill to just make it go away. We need to take responsibility for the RIGHT approach in our own community.

We all know taking responsibility can be tough, but we DO have the power to cause change. Keep in mind that we are the ones who live in this community. We employ the residents of this community and are the ones who are in such pain that we contemplate taking our own life. We are the ones who suffer the loss of family and friends.

So, Here are the steps:

 1. If you employ people, train your staff to understand crisis support and self-care - empower them to take responsibility. If you are an employee, approach your employer and discuss the benefits of training programs.       

2. Openly talk about mental health. It is critical that everyone gains comfort in discussing mental health. We are comfortable to speak about how much weight we lost from Gastro, but uncomfortable to tell someone that we are finding things really tough?

 3. Write a letter, make a phone call or send an email to me, our local council / state members of parliament. As we need to build a strong partnership between businesses and government to ensure this program succeeds.

Just like the Scots, let us take responsibility to enable Australian people to live longer, healthier lives and start asking more of "What's happening for you and how can I unconditionally support you?", rather than the "What is WRONG with you?" status quo.

On behalf of the parents who have lost their son or daughter, on behalf of the husband that has lost his partner, on behalf of the wife that has lost her partner, on behalf of the child who has lost a parent, on behalf of the families who have lost their loved one, on behalf of the friends who grieve the loss of someone they had a lifelong friendship with, and finally on behalf of a Community who has lost one of it’s members, we need to unite and address this problem as we are the ones who have the power to cause this positive change.

 ~Heather Stevenson