2023 Year in Review
Wow, what an end to 2023!
Of course, we anticipate cyclones and even floods in Far North Queensland but Cyclone Jasper and the rain and floods that followed hit us hard.
The repair and recovery work will take many months, both at a practical level, (considering just how many houses, kitchens and whole communities need rebuilding) and an emotional one as we move through the cyclic stages of grief and loss.
An old 16th century word popped up in the many memes doing the rounds recently - I like it and I think it has resonance for us here:
Respair meaning “fresh hope; a recovery from despair.”
Respair can hold us as we step into 2024.
Now we take time to look back at what we have learned over the past year in our Life Promotion and Suicide Prevention FNQ initiative. What challenges have we uncovered that can shape our work in 2024?
Building a movement for change
Firstly the power of friendship, connection and collaboration. Through our Collaborative events, we have learned that people like to come together and explore new ideas, relationships and partnerships. True to the nature of a collective impact-style initiative, it’s the people who make a difference and lead the movement for change.
In hosting six interconnected events over the past twelve months, more than 90 people from a mix of over 30 organisations, health and public service agencies and community groups across Far North Queensland have been part of this growing movement for change.
By forging new relationships and reconnecting with old friends and colleagues through the intentional building of a movement for change, it is possible to see a new narrative and imperative growth in how we address suicide in our area.
As part of this work, the Collaborative developed a vision of the community we would like to live in and highlighted a set of Critical Shifts that need to occur to make the visions real.
Read more here.
A love of learning
We also learned that people like to learn. In partnership with Roses in The Ocean, we introduced Touch Points as a new Lived Experienced-led-and-designed suicide prevention training.
In Cairns and Atherton, we had over 75 participants go through the training. Through the ‘train a trainer’ initiative, we now have three more new locally-based trainers ready to teach more people how to be a TouchPoint in someone's life.
You can read more about this initiative here.
In Community: place-based initiatives
Kowanyama
In the latter half of 2023, we worked alongside the community in Kowanyama to design a local community-driven suicide prevention community action plan. That engagement included over 70 people describing what a good life in Kowanyama looks and feels like, building on the existing strengths within the community.
Read more on Kowanyama here.
Innisfail
We also worked with Innisfail Community Support Services, Mamu Health Service, Diamonds in the Sky and the Cassowary Coast Council to deliver a range of community-led initiatives under the ‘Tackling Regional Adversity Through Connected Communities’ Queensland Health project.
New initiatives and partnerships
We invited expressions of interest to kick off some new ideas and initiatives.
Currently underway are three small independent projects led by:
Talk About it Tuesday: A Lived Experience-led capacity building initiative.
Apunipima: A learning and development initiative to build capacity in the workforce.
Tablelands Mental Health Action Group: a men’s support initiative.
CoAct Resource
In partnership with CoAct (a leading National social franchise that supports people to find work), we developed a resource for staff who work daily in direct service delivery and frequently hear stories of distress. The easily accessible resource was co-designed with staff members and is being tried and tested by teams.
Ten Priorities and launch of our new website
In early 2023, the team at Beacon Strategies developed Ten Priorities to guide the Life Promotion and Suicide Prevention FNQ work. The priorities were designed following consultation with key stakeholders and informed by earlier engagement work.
The priorities were also informed by the Black Dog Institute LifeSpan Framework for Suicide Prevention and a Collective Impact approach to change.
We also launched our new website, combining both streams of our Cairns and Hinterland, and Torres and Strait SPCAP websites.
You can see the list of ten priorities here.
Out and about - learning with others
Living in FNQ, we must pay attention to what is happening outside our region. We sought new ideas by attending the National Suicide Prevention Australia Conference in Canberra earlier this year.
Our most significant takeaway was that, ultimately, suicide prevention is an invitation for all of us to create a more humane society. Perhaps it’s more than an invitation, but an imperative.
The key to suicide prevention lies in our interactions with each other at an individual and a systems level.
Two significant developments caught our interest the most. A call for a National Suicide Prevention Act and the development of the Social and Environmental Determinants of Suicide.
Both are initiatives of Suicide Prevention Australia and ask us to move beyond a focus on mental health and charity fundraisers to a whole of government and political responsibility for suicide prevention.
As Nieves Murray, CEO of Suicide Prevention Australia says, a National Suicide Prevention Act “lifts suicide prevention to more than just a passion project and enshrines statutory responsibility, accountability, transparency and ongoing focus that is independent of the political flavour of the day.”
We also attended the Queensland Mental Health Commission Leading Reform Summit last month. The time for reform and change is here. We are keen to be part of that reform and imaging new futures.. The work of the Life Promotion and Suicide Prevention FNQ Collaborative has much to offer.
Read more about the conference here.
Thank you
If you are one of the many people who have joined us in a Collaborative event, have generously shared your ideas and time, have browsed our website and got to the end of this newsletter, thank you!
Please know that every small contribution goes to building a world we all want to live in, and that every single one of us has a role to play in life promotion and suicide prevention.
We look forward to the “alchemy of creation” and working together through 2024.