Wesley Mission has a long history providing suicide prevention services in Australia. In 1963, the CEO of the Central Methodist Mission (as it was then known) took a phone call at home from a stranger who was alone and in crisis. Unfortunately, Roy died by suicide, but that lived experience prompted Rev Dr Alan Walker to start the first Lifeline service.
The original Lifeline service was established near Telstra exchanges with a local number so help seekers wouldn’t need to pay a toll (distance-based) call. In those days, when a help seeker phoned Lifeline Sydney, the volunteer phone operator would use a 2-way CB radio to send a “trouble team” in a branded Volkswagen Beetle to meet the caller and provide them with support or take them to a counselling or accommodation service.
Suicide and attempting suicide would remain a criminal act across all jurisdictions from 1963 until 1996, creating challenges for Lifeline volunteers talking with help seekers who were contemplating committing a crime. The Lifeline International movement is still working to decriminalise suicide in countries many of us visit for holidays each year.
By the 1990s’, 41 organisations with different local phone numbers provided Lifeline services across Australia – when Telstra launched its 13-number services. That shift saw a change in how Lifeline services could be provided because calls just didn’t come from across the street or across town, now they came from across the country.
In 1995, as the last jurisdiction in Australia was being lobbied to decriminalise suicide many faith and cultural communities were not supporting funerals for those impacted by suicide, so Wesley started delivering suicide memorial services in public spaces to support those of some faith, no faith and different faiths who hadn’t been able to express their grief.
That year, as the Lifeline model was adapting to reach all of Australia, Rev Bob Dunlop, a Wesley Mission Chaplin, crowdfunded support from St George Bank and Coca-Cola to establish Wesley LifeForce, a suicide prevention training program for young people.
This grassroots program was delivered in a handful of locations annually until, in 2007, several young adults in one of the classes asked to keep meeting each month to plan ways to reduce suicide in their community. That became the first Wesley LifeForce suicide prevention network. Networks are established and supported by Wesley LifeForce, but led and governed by elected local community members. Most networks receive regular in-person support and connect with other communities nationally, but they will not have public Wesley branding.
In 2021, the University of Melbourne found that “Longitudinal analyses of national suicide data showed that on average, the introduction of Wesley LifeForce Networks reduced the suicide rate by seven percent. This pattern of effects was most pronounced in the third quarter after Network introduction, with a significant reduction of 17 per cent in suicide rates”.
In 2024, Wesley LifeForce held its annual conference in Sydney with 150 attendees, flying in representatives from 130 communities and more than 80 electorates across the country. Delegates shared their stories and unique strategies under the theme of Community Culture Collaboration.
Attendees actively engaged with keynotes from Ashley Fell on McCrindle Research, as well as industry leaders Katherine Newton from RUOK and Colin Seery from Lifeline Australia.
In partnership with SBS Media, LifeForce training launched refugee and asylum seeker suicide prevention training in six new languages at the conference, including Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Karen, Khmer and Tamil. These programs and resources will be offered to migrant, refugee and partner organisations in early 2025 using a train-the-trainer framework.
To access resources and research, or explore opportunities to partner, visit wesleylifeforce.org.au
