Road to Reform

The first stop on the road to reform involves a whole of government, whole of community approach to suicide prevention.

A ‘whole of government’ approach means every part of Government should play a part in reducing distress and suicide in our communities.

Because suicide isn’t just a mental health issue, Government needs to  build suicide prevention into their public policy decisions on areas like housing, employment and helping people build healthy social connections.

Government is already heading down this road with the appointment of a National Suicide Prevention Adviser.

But there’s still more to be done.

We need accurate, reliable data on suicide and suicide prevention.

This information helps Government, people working in suicide prevention and the wider community understand why suicides occur and how to prevent them from occurring.

That’s why we need Suicide Registers in every state and territory.  Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania already have them in place.

And the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has just launched the new Suicide and Self-harm Monitoring System which showcases national data.

The last stop on our road to reform is ‘workforce’, which involves everyone who could have a role in preventing suicide.

Because suicide isn’t just a mental health issue, we need Government to develop a standalone Suicide Prevention Workforce Strategy.

The strategy would address recruitment, retention and training for any workplace where people at risk of suicide might present.