Cairns and Hinterland Suicide Prevention Community Action Plan Community Advisory Group Meeting - April
Recap of March and the plan for April
With only two more Community Advisory Group (CAG) meetings to go, we thought we’d quickly recap the outcomes of our last meeting for the Cairns and Hinterland Suicide Prevention Community Action Plan.
During last month’s meeting, the CAG outlined local issues and ideas for action aligned to Black Dog Institute’s LifeSpan model (read more here). This meeting allowed areas of priority for the Community Action Plan to be identified and went on to explore initial ideas into how these areas may be addressed.
This month, the Community Advisory Group explored what the vision, purpose, implementation and governance of the plan should look like.
How we discussed the vision, purpose, implementation and governance of the Community Action Plan
How we ran the meeting
In order to get the most out of this meeting, prompt questions were distributed to CAG members prior to the meeting to facilitate thinking around ideas and insights they would like to discuss on the day. These questions were then used as a guide for the meeting and a raw summary of what was discussed can be found below:
Vision:
In 10 years time, how do you want to describe how suicide is being addressed in your community?
Collective and holistic
Comprehensive and integrated approach
Focus on prevention and intervention
Community driven
Clear referral and support pathways for the community
Purpose:
Who is the audience and how will the plan be used by each group?
Entire community
Broad community organisations and support services
Non-health providers
Do you have any examples of community led-responses to a local issue that have worked well previously? What are some key takeaways?
Student support through schools
Limitation to the response was “there was not a key agency responsible or driving the response”
Community representatives driving the plan across the community
Collaboration of key stakeholders to drive local responses
Success came from the “determination and mutual respect of the program”
What product(s) exist and what do they look like?
Flyers
Service flow chart
Easy to read document with actions
Magnets
Implementation documents for organisations
App
How will people know about the Plan?
Filtered through a variety of networks (e.g. Local Level Alliance)
Provision of resources to key stakeholders
Advocacy from health services (e.g. Queensland Health, General Practitioners)
Information available at local council and community centres
Information sessions facilitated by various stakeholders (e.g. mental health specialists, school counsellors, religious leaders)
Marketing campaigns (social media)
Implementation and governance:
How do we make sure the Plan gets delivered?
Statements of commitment
Hierarchy of accountability and responsibility
Identified Plan leader
Who is involved?
All community stakeholders
Community members
Community driven organisations (e.g. child safety, schools, church groups, sports clubs)
Government agencies (e.g. police services, local councils, community centres)
Health and mental health practitioners
How do people meet to track/report progress?
Feedback from primary stakeholders (committed agencies)
Accountability responses to offer support to those involved
Engaging local community members to provide their input and opinions
Online document with outcome indicators that can be reported on and submitted
When does the Plan get reviewed?
Annually
What’s next
The ideas discussed in the April meeting will be synthesised and used to develop the vision, purpose, implementation and governance of the Suicide Prevention Community Action Plan. If you have any additional insights you would like to share around this topic, we would love to hear from you. Shoot us an email via info@beaconstrategies.net or sign up to the newsletter for this project below. Stay tuned as we’ll release information about the next meeting in the coming weeks.
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