Universities Australia, the peak body for Australia’s universities, has partnered with Suicide Prevention Australia to develop a suicide prevention competency framework for universities.
This important partnership will help provide a structure that enables early intervention for staff experiencing suicidal behaviour, staff or students with a lived experience of suicidal behaviour, and people studying who may experience struggles or factors that cause significant distress.
The suicide prevention competency framework will be evidence-informed, culturally accessible and hands-on in its support for universities to build on protective factors, while reducing risk within their communities.
Importantly, this approach will take into consideration the roles of non-clinical university staff and students in responding to the diverse and complex risk factors found in universities.
This suicide prevention competency framework will build on the longstanding work of individual universities to support the positive mental health of their communities, and complement existing partnerships between universities and organisations such as Orygen, headspace and Everymind.
Universities Australia represents 39 member universities that educate 1.5 million students every year and employ over 100,000 staff. This project offers a solution for reaching a large group of Australia’s population to help support those experiencing or at risk of distress.
Suicide Prevention Australia, in collaboration with its members and stakeholders, has developed Suicide Prevention: A competency framework, providing insight into the skills, knowledge and values of the non-clinical suicide prevention workforce in Australia. A copy of the Framework can be downloaded from our website.
Suicide Prevention Australia CEO, Nieves Murray said, “Partnerships like this have the capacity to make a real difference to the lives of many people. Offering suicide prevention solutions in this manner can save lives. Workforce training and cross-sector collaboration is a critical part of a community approach to suicide prevention.”