Suicide Prevention Co-Design: Gold Coast PHN

Status: Completed November 2020

Client: Gold Coast PHN and Wesley Mission Queensland

Background

The co-design of a service model that aimed to address situational distress in the Gold Coast community was outlined as a key piece of work in the Gold Coast Suicide Prevention Community Action Plan.

The Gold Coast PHN’s previous health needs assessment had identified the need for a community-based suicide prevention response for the Gold Coast that sits within the local context and existing continuum of suicide prevention services.

Gold Coast PHN commissioned Wesley Mission Queensland to establish and deliver the new service from late-2020, and the Beacon Strategies team was engaged to lead a service design process and develop a service model ready for implementation.

Approach

Beacon Strategies, in partnership with Wesley Mission Queensland and Gold Coast PHN, led the co-design of a service model that aimed to provide tailored psychosocial support to people experiencing suicidal crisis or in situational distress within the community and primary care setting.

Throughout the project, Beacon Strategies worked together with people with lived experience of suicide and stakeholders from local health and social services, including local GPs, to :

Identify service needs across the Gold Coast region
Present model options based on scan of leading practice
Engage with key local stakeholders where model options were tested, developed solutions and identified implementation considerations.
Engage with people with lived experience to capture their needs and identify design considerations
Workshop and develop an ‘implementation ready’ service model and establishment plan
Incorporate a monitoring and evaluation framework to enable outcomes measurement.

Outcomes

In November 2020, we handed over the service model to Wesley Mission Queensland to commence establishment.

The service aimed to identify people experiencing situational distress in the community and connect them with emotional, practical and coaching support, with a particular focus on linking with a person’s regular GP. The service should lead to:

better access to safe and individualised support for people in their own community who are experiencing situational distress
working together with each person to improve their sense of connection, hope and comfort, and build their resilience, coping mechanisms and empowerment
creating a positive and welcoming experience with support services
preventing utilisation of acute and/or emergency services relating to a suicidal crisis.

To review some of the findings that emerged from the process, see below for the meeting outcomes of the session facilitated with the Gold Coast PHN’s Community Advisory Council (CAC).