Weekly wrap - 15 September 2017

It’s been a very meaningful 13 day week for the team at Lifeline Canberra. Across crisis support, events and government, we have engaged with over 20,500 Canberrans in a face-to-face capacity. This is in addition to what our incredible crisis support volunteers have done on the phones. 

This image of the Harm Minimisation Roundtable attendees captures one such engagement, a true first for our community. Until today this diverse group of individuals had not met as a group to discuss an issue that has dominated our ecosystem for a long time. Minister Gordon Ramsay, in his commitment to the issue of harm minimisation in gaming, facilitated a robust think tank by bringing together individuals who have suffered gambling harm, CEOs from the community club sector, the mental health sector and the ANU. Our mandate... to design an effective pathway to harm reduction. Lifeline Canberra is deeply engaged in this space through its crisis support services and it is important that those vulnerable in our community are represented. I thank the Minister for this initiative.

For over 46 years, Lifeline Canberra and our highly skilled volunteers have provided 24/7 support via our local 13 11 14 crisis support service. Our telephone crisis supporters listen with care and acceptance, whatever the circumstance, and provide support and information to people in need. This is a service we are all passionate about and a service that relies heavily on support from the Canberra community.

Our Bookfairs remain our largest contributor of funds and we pride ourselves on being able to continuously deliver bigger and better Bookfairs that encourage community participation and provide great value to our community, as well as funds for our crisis support line.

Our Spring EPIC Bookfair was a huge success with the community buying more books than ever to see us raise enough funds to answer over 2100 life-changing calls. We are truly grateful to everyone who came out to shop. Our Bookfair is brought together through much hard-work from our volunteers and staff, many of whom work tirelessly throughout the year to show care to every book donated and ensure every Bookfair is a successful and enjoyable event. Thank you to all our volunteers and staff, your commitment to Lifeline Canberra is humbling. You are the dream team. 

On Sunday morning we converged on the Australian War Memorial at 5.40am to remember loved ones lost and to speak openly about suicide and suicide prevention. We united for our Out of the Shadows walk on World Suicide Prevention Day as part of our commitment to bring mental health out of the shadows and into the light. As we walked, and the sun rose to light the way, it was wonderful to hear individuals connecting and supporting one another. Thank you to Minister Shane Rattenbury for joining us and for reading out the names of those for whom we walked. A very special thank you also to the incredible Jason Maynard who played a song in honour of a lost friend and in tribute to all. Thank you also to Rachael Stephen-Smith MLA was also in attendance and everyone who joined us for the special morning of reflection.

Continuing a busy week of recognition, this week we celebrated the opening of our newly renovated Hipsley Room, which is a place for our crisis support workers to take a moment to debrief and recharge. We thank Wally and The team at EQ Cafe for making delicious cakes for the occasion and all our Lifeline family (staff, volunteers, ambassadors and friends) for joining us for our room unveiling. Once again we give a huge thank you to Manteena Commercial, Forge Constructions, MPE Electrical, KMA Painting and Peckvonhartel who donated their time to create this new, comfortable sanctuary for our volunteers.

Have a great weekend everyone, and look after you!