A recap of our busy end to 2024! Trips to connect with communities, workshops and celebrations.

With a growing awareness nationally and internationally on suicide prevention strategies, we decided to host a symposium on the theme ‘Changing the Narrative’.

We had a very busy World Suicide Prevention Day. Check out a few of the events we held and attended for WSPD in September!

Gill Townsend, Manager (Suicide Prevention) went to the National Suicide Prevention Conference looking for inspiration and ideas to feed into our work for the Life Promotion and Suicide Prevention FNQ Collaborative where our recent focus has been on systems, racism, education, stigma and language, access and family and domestic violence.

Life Promotion FNQ member Steph shares her learnings from the 25th Annual Suicide Prevention Conference held in Adelaide earlier this month.

A guest blog from our Collaborative member Trevor Philpot who joined us at the National Suicide Prevention Conference 2024.

These last few months, we have had more wonderful connections and conversations with other like-minded people interested in building strong healthy communities and exploring new narratives about suicide and suicide prevention.

We’ve been hosting the Collaborative for over a year now and have been extremely pleased, by the effectiveness of the ‘creative’ approach to suicide prevention. We now approach our next event ‘Critical Shifts’.

We are taking time to look back at what we have learned over 2023 in our Life Promotion and Suicide Prevention FNQ initiative. What challenges have we uncovered that can shape our work through 2024?

Key themes, such as humanity, compassion, social connection, equity, early intervention, and embracing bravery and boldness, prominently emerged during the event.

A busy month! We recap October, including our preparations for a SPCAP plan for Kowanyama, our next Collaborative event, Touchpoints training and lots of important discussions ranging from domestic violence to self-harm in culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

Gill Townsend joined NQPHN and CHHHS in a co-design workshop to discuss how to design a new service for Head 2 Health mental health services that is easily accessible and meets community needs in Cairns.

On 28 June, we attended the TouchPoints training, delivered by RITO. The morning was full of vibrant conversation, personal stories and reflections, and opportunities to meet other people who want to be part of a greater movement for change.

TouchPoints is a short, easily accessible workshop for the general community to see how they may be a TouchPoint for someone experiencing difficulties relating to suicide and expands on the view that TouchPoints don't necessarily need to be found in the professional helping sector.

Last week, we were pleased to bring together almost 40 people from across FNQ for the third instalment in a series of events we refer to as ‘The Collaborative’, contributing to preventing and reducing the impact of suicide.

Up to $10,000 is available for community-led suicide prevention initiatives in Far North Queensland. Applications close 30 April 2023.