How do we build a collective approach to life promotion and suicide prevention in FNQ?
Summary of Collaborative Meeting 3
Last week (20, April 2023), 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’.
The Collaborative extends an invitation to those who are committed to being part of something exciting — a movement for change in suicide prevention.
It offers people opportunities to:
Meet and work alongside others with similar and different interests
enjoy a creative and interactive series of events
discover new systems and approaches together
contribute to preventing and reducing the impact of suicide.
The vision is to create a regional, interconnected group of leaders and people with influence from across communities and sectors in FNQ who can share their wisdom and collaborate in their work.
In this third instalment of the Collaborative, we used the concept of a ‘brown bag’ session, where we heard interesting and inspiring insights shared by three members of the Collaborative.
Collective impact in action: the Cairns South Together example
Our first presenter was Kylie Bock from Mission Australia, who manages Cairns South Together — a community-led, place-based initiative that believes in the power of collective impact.
As a member of the backbone support team, Kylie shared the history and current approach of Cairns South Together, with key takeaways including:
How the motto of ‘nothing about us, without us’ ensures local people, including community members and those with a lived experience, are those who shape and take local action.
Forming clusters or working groups around priority areas.
The value in going where the energy is, recognising that some areas or groups may be in hibernation as capacity allows.
How data and reporting are important enablers for looking back and learning, and informing future action.
Postvention planning: Thirrili
Marine Weule, Executive Manager Service Delivery at Thirrili spoke about postvention, prevention and how the domains of the social and emotional wellbeing framework can be overlaid on the LifeSpan Framework.
Marnie presented the model of support used by Thirrili to provide postvention to First Nations families and communities impacted by a loss from suicide or other fatal traumatic incidents. Thirrili does this through self-determined approaches, ongoing community consultation, and collective impact approaches.
Marnie set a challenge to non-Indigenous service providers to recognise the importance of a healthy, functioning SEWB wheel and to facilitate this in their work with First Nations communities.
Marnie’s insights prompted broader reflections within the group that recognised that First Nations communities are a collective people who innately work together on common goals — which makes ‘collective impact’ not a new concept for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
Meaningfully engaging the voice of lived experience of suicide
Finally, we had Tynan Narywonczyk from Roses in the Ocean share a powerful reminder with us about why engaging people with lived experience can, and should be, central to suicide prevention activities. Key takeaways included:
Recognising the importance of a ‘lens’ (in the context of lived experience with suicide), and how lived experience provides a critical lens to work with people and communities.
Reminding folks that behind the statistics, there are real people with unique and diverse experiences, and how those experiences bring priceless stories and wisdom.
Reminding us of our responsibility to challenge common myths that enable stigma around suicide.
Recognising the distinction between suicide prevention and the mental health service system.
Understanding the importance and impact that the language we use has. Reminding us that “language can wound and it can heal”.
Asking all of us to work on creating a culture that values lived experience, acknowledges the resilience and wisdom of people with lived experience, and encourages lived experience involvement in organisations and spaces working in suicide prevention.
Tynan also introduced some of the exciting work being led by Roses in the Ocean to grow a lived experience network across FNQ through training and connection with opportunities.
Tynan ended the presentation by sharing resources, guiding principles, and practical strategies developed by Roses in the Ocean to help organisations meaningfully engage with people with lived experiences of suicide, which you can find here.
Where to from here?
After an opportunity to connect and reflect on the presentations, Gill Townsend from Beacon Strategies provided a quick update on key priorities being progressed as part of the Life Promotion and Suicide Prevention FNQ initiative. These included:
launching a new integrated website that aims to share resources and insights from across the Cairns & Hinterland and Torres & Cape Suicide Prevention Community Action Plans (SPCAPs)
announcing a small grants opportunity that has been recently released (closing on 30 April!) for communities to access funding to help support them to take suicide prevention action locally
introducing the TouchPoints training that will be delivered by Roses in the Ocean and train 15 people across the region with 5 of these to become trainers themselves. TouchPoints is a four-hour workshop designed specifically to give community members an insight into suicide through the lens of lived experience and equip them with the right knowledge and practical tools to reduce others’ emotional pain. It is predicated on the idea that community members are often ‘TouchPoints’ for people to seek and receive help, and therefore that by developing people’s capacity to support others, we can save lives.
providing an update on work being done with CoACT, a network of job service providers, to help understand the role of frontline workers in this sector to support people experiencing distress, and to look after themselves working in a challenging environment
introducing an idea being progressed with several local journalists to provide training in safe and appropriate communication about suicide for media organisations
providing an update on ongoing engagement with local communities, including Kowanyama, that support the development of their own localised SPCAP.
We are looking forward to our next planned event with The Collaborative, which will take the format of a revue — ‘open mic’ style. We will ask our valued network of people working in suicide prevention and life promotion across the FNQ to come along and share some stories about the impact they’ve been making.
Until then, take care of yourselves, please keep our team in the loop about any exciting work you’re involved in, and let us know how we can support you or your community.