Lived experience & LGBTIQAP+ engagement summary
As a part of our project with Northern Queensland PHN, last week team member Sarah headed up to Cairns with some of our friends from Roses in the Ocean to gain insights from people with a lived experience of suicidal crisis or attempt, caring for someone through a suicide crisis, or have been bereaved by suicide and people who identify as or work with the LGBTIQAP+ community.
Through a series of face-to-face co-design sessions, we gained many insights from a range of community members’ perspectives. These insights will directly inform the development of the Suicide Prevention Community Action Plan (SP-CAP) for the Cairns and Hinterland region. Insights were gathered from a range of locations, including:
Cairns North
Cairns South (Edmonton)
Mareeba
Innisfail
Mossman
Outcomes of the sessions
During these sessions, we aimed to explore attendees’ personal needs, community needs, and actions that should start, stop, or increase to help prevent suicide in the Cairns and Hinterland region. We gained lots of valuable insights during our trip to Cairns and have summarised some of the key needs that were discussed in these sessions:
Community education and resources to improve understanding, reduce stigma and improve community ability to address suicide
Support for carers and those bereaved (including practical and financial support)
Education and training for support staff and community services (e.g. teachers, Emergency Department staff, GPs, police)
Safe spaces
Clear access pathways to support
Follow-up care
24-hour support for those in crisis
Culturally appropriate and specific services
Locally-based services
Continuity of care and consistency in providers
Peer support workers with lived experience
Connection and collaboration among services to reduce the need to tell your story multiple times
Developing the plan
The next step for developing the SP-CAP will see the project team head up to Cairns to present all of the consultation findings to the Community Advisory Group for this project and begin developing the plan.
If you want to stay up to date with the development of this plan, you can do so by signing up for the Northern Queensland PHN Community Action Plan email list using the form below, where you’ll receive regular updates on the progress of this project. We have also put together a newsfeed for this project where you can find more information.
Sign up to the Cairns and Hinterland Suicide Prevention Community Action Plan newsletter via this link.