Day 3 – Thursday 4 May 2023
- Chief Psychiatrist of South Australia, Dr John Brayley spoke about the importance of a National Suicide Prevention Act both in a federal and state/territory context – he said surely anything that creates more engagement with the community, more accountability and more transparency is a good thing. He mentioned that an Act ensures everyone across government is involved in suicide prevention.
- Greg Smith from Men Care too said men are a lot less likely to identify with the term “carer”. He reiterated the importance of social connection for men and that everything points to a feeling of connection when things happen in life that aren’t great.
- Dr Ally Nicolopolus, Lifeline said we must always meet people where they are and in an empathic way. Very few men were talking about suicide when sharing experiences of their distress, but rather they talked about an event or something bad that happened in their lives.
- Dr Sally Spencer-Thomas shared insights on building safe workplaces that are equipped to look after the wellbeing of their employees, invest in training and the role of leadership. Storytelling is an important part of building connections in the workplace and can help motivate cultural change.
- Insights from our closing panel:
- Thanking and acknowledging those that have shared their vulnerabilities over the last few days.
- The conference had a really warm feeling to it. The flavour of lived experience in this conference was truly felt, and it was challenging at times. It’s not meant to be easy – if it’s easy and smooth then we’re not doing it right.
- We need to stop churning out more reviews and plans. There’s still a long way to go and now we need action.
- There is an emerging wave of great leaders in the suicide prevention sector.
