Tasmania needs to build a collective voice for suicide prevention, according to the peak body representing community mental health.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
On Tuesday the Mental Health Council of Tasmania launched the Safely Talking Toolkit, aimed at promoting safe and effective discussions around suicide and suicide prevention.
It comes as a new report from KPMG, on behalf of Suicide Prevention Australia, warned suicide deaths were on track to grow up to 40 per cent nationally without better prevention and earlier intervention.
MHCT chief executive Connie Digolis said while progress had been made regarding the acceptance of mental illness, there were still inconsistencies around how people talked safely about suicide and its impact in communities.
"I think there is a level of acceptance - especially for illnesses such as anxiety and depression - that we wouldn't have seen 10 years ago," she said.
"But I think there are still ways many people often, while well intentioned, inadvertently use language that can be quite harmful for people or even for the community.
"The toolkit and the approach we are taking is about encouraging people to have the conversations, but to make sure we are using a language that is consistent and also safe."
In other news:
Launched in Hobart on Tuesday and coinciding with World Suicide Prevention Day, the Safely Talking Toolkit was created in partnership with Everymind, with funding from the state government.
With three workshops to be held across the state this week, Ms Digolis said the toolkit was Tasmanian focused and the first of its kind.
Also released on Tuesday, Suicide Prevention Australia's Imagine a World Without Suicide paper predicted 1300 more deaths by suicide would occur each year by 2030, if worsening trends from the past decade continued.
The report examined emerging trends in housing, finance, employment and relationships and their likely effect on Australians in the coming decade.
Labelling the findings as a "major wakeup call", Suicide Prevention Australia chief executive Nieves Murray said the challenge was to now look at suicide prevention beyond a health response.
"The challenge for this decade is preventing the next wave of stressors - whether they be financial, personal or environmental - transforming into a threat to suicide rates in the first place," she said.
"The better we can proactively predict what economic and social risks are around the corner, the better we can prepare Australians ahead of time and prevent suicide rates increasing."
The Safely Talking Toolkit can be found here.
- For crisis support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.