Drafting the Suicide Prevention Community Action Plan for the Cairns and Hinterland Region
The development of the Cairns and Hinterland SPCAP has been quite the journey. Although experiencing a number of temporary disruptions (COVID-19 and an extreme weather event...), the end result has been more than worth it. The process so far has been a rewarding one with many highlights to report, including:
Establishing, rebooting and engaging the Cairns and Hinterland SPCAP Community Advisory Group through a series of workshops to identify issues and priority actions, develop the vision and purpose of the Plan, refine ideas and prioritise actions and endorse the final Cairns and Hinterland SPCAP.
Engaging various stakeholder groups including:
Sector professionals via a 5-day consultation loop, taking place in Cairns North, Atherton, Innisfail, Edmonton and Mossman
Roses in the Ocean engaging deeply with people who have a lived experience of suicide and delivering an LGBTIQAP+ specific engagement opportunity
The broader Cairns and Hinterland community through the submission of written survey responses
A number of Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs) across the region through direct engagement
Leveraging the expertise of Black Dog Institute’s Suicide Data Analysis Report (SDAR) to improve visibility of local suicide data and trends, enabling a targeted approach to developing suicide prevention responses to meet the needs of those who need them most.
Following the engagement process, our team has developed a draft version of the SPCAP for the Cairns and Hinterland region.
Thank you to the Community Advisory Group, Roses in the Ocean, Black Dog Institute and Northern Queensland PHN for their feedback on the initial version of the Plan. In the next phase of this process, we will implement all of the feedback provided to produce a final version of the Plan which will be released in the near future.
The next phase of the project
With the planning phase now done, Beacon Strategies will continue to support Northern Queensland PHN with the implementation of the Suicide Prevention Community Action Plan for the Cairns and Hinterland region. In order to ensure activities are coordinated and effective, Beacon Strategies are opening a new office in the Cairns region. In addition, Beacon Strategies are also onboarding two new team members, a new project support officer and a coordinator to support this phase of the project.
Head to our SPCAP newsfeed to read up on what we’ve done in this project so far, or, if you want to be informed about the future activities of this project, be sure to sign up to the email list for this project.