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Nov 19, 2024
Start a conversation. Find your reasons to stay
Sept 19, 2019
Surviving a crisis often depends on swift intervention, but finding the right help at this time can be difficult – so a new community-led campaign aims to ease the confusion.
ReasonsToStay.com.au provides information about accessing face-to-face suicide prevention services or telephone support in the Brisbane North region.
The campaign targets people who are experiencing or at risk of experiencing a suicidal crisis, and those who are concerned about a friend or family member.
Despite the many support services available, Brisbane North PHN Chief Executive Officer Abbe Anderson said some people still end up at the Emergency Department (ED).
“While presenting to the ED is sometimes the right first step, this setting is not necessarily the best place for a person in crisis,” Ms Anderson said.
“Consequently, these people risk not receiving the right care, in the right place, at the right time,” she said.
“The Reasons to Stay campaign aims to show people where and how to get the help they need. It also encourages them to reach out and start a conversation, so they can find their reasons to stay.
“This message complements other campaigns currently in circulation and highlights that you don’t need to be a health professional to start a conversation around suicide prevention,” she said.
Brisbane North PHN developed the Reasons to Stay campaign as part of its local implementation of the Australian Government-funded National Suicide Prevention Trial.
The campaign builds upon community consultations the PHN ran in 2016 that showed:
• The Brisbane North region lacked a clear pathway to follow for people experiencing a suicidal crisis, those who have made a suicide attempt or those who have been bereaved by suicide
• Health and other professionals in the region did not have a good understanding of the appropriate services to refer people
• People experiencing suicidal crisis or who have made a suicide attempt often present to a hospital ED for help and support.
Visit www.reasonstostay.com.au to find out more.
FAST FACTS
- Suicide remains the leading cause of death for Australians aged between 15 and 44 years.
- Suicide rates among Indigenous Australians are at least twice that of non-Indigenous Australians.
- Suicide attempts are three times more likely for LGBTI people than for the general population.
- The suicide attempt rate is 10.7% for women, compared to 4.5% for men.
- Men are three times more likely to die as a result of suicide than women.
- 49.2% of Queenslanders who died by suicide between 2002 and 2011 had at least one diagnosable mental illness and one in four had consulted a health professional about their mental health in the three months before they suicided.
