Key recommendations

The recommendations for Port Lincoln were:

Improving emergency and follow-up care for suicidal crisis

• Engage people with a lived experience who can inform of changes to the referral process to assist with improving emergency and follow-up care. • Implement a dedicated aftercare service to provide follow-up care for those who have made a suicide attempt. This includes providing continuity of care, coordination across services and strong follow-up. • Implement best practice care guidelines within emergency departments and deliver training to emergency department personnel and hospital staff. • Provide locally developed resource packs to patients, family and carers who have been in contact with crisis care. • Develop a service level agreement and structured systems to ensure support can be ongoing and agencies provide services aligned to their expertise.

Using evidence-based treatment for suicidality

• Improve information sharing between services, families and carers. • Encourage the use of Telehealth and e-Mental Health tools. • Deliver Advanced Training in Suicide Prevention (ATSP) to clinicians including doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists.

Equipping primary care to identify and support people in distress

• Provide further training opportunities for GPs and practice staff. • Establish clear referral mechanisms within the community. • Develop posters, cards and information brochures on local service options that are visible and accessible across all primary care facilities. • Equip practices with a ‘stepped care’ model that allows GPs to easily identify patients in need of support and tailor a treatment plan that is right for them. • Implement improved consent tools to enable better sharing of information between health services, as well as other support networks (e.g. family and friends).

Improving the competency and confidence of frontline workers to deal with suicidal crisis

• Develop a common appropriate language across agencies and sectors. • Provide targeted education and training for accident and emergency staff to refresh or upskill and build their capacity to support the community. • Facilitate real-time electronic data collection by agencies to report and measure the level of suicidal crisis within the community.

Promoting help-seeking, mental health and resilience in schools

• Encourage the delivery of evidence-based programs, promoting help-seeking behaviours and building resilience. • Provide suicide prevention training to all education staff. • Create awareness of bullying through social media platforms and active strategies that reduce and or eliminate bullying from schools.

• Ensure information about local support services and programs are visible throughout local schools .

Training the community to recognise and respond to suicidality

• Raise awareness across the community of what to do in a crisis, referrals and service access points. • Establish an area within the emergency department and the local library where people can access information on support services available.

• Develop an easy-to-access online portal of services and agencies. • Provide training opportunities for the community to help recognise and respond to suicidality. • Provide training opportunities for people with a lived experience of suicide to share their story to create understanding and awareness.

• Work with local employers to include information about local support services in their employee induction process.

Engaging the community and providing opportunities to be part of the change

• Provide targeted engagement with key stakeholders through training and information that activates positive change and builds the capacity for people to support each other and respond in a crisis. • Pro-active use of social media to engage and inform the community. • Engage with community and sporting groups to build capacity and promote help seeking behaviours. • Ensure information about support services and programs are accessible and visible in the local community 24/7. • Develop posters on local service options that are visible and accessible across the community. • Identify and train a range of LifeSpan Champions who can influence key stakeholders and communicate change to key groups and forums, or act as spokespeople. • Create a wellbeing committee aiming to educate people about recognising and responding to suicidality and support each other in times of crisis.

Encouraging safe and purposeful media reporting

• Facilitate Mindframe training for media and key spokespeople, including mayors, politicians, and others. • Encourage proactive use of media to promote support and resources.

Improving safety and reducing access to means of suicide

• Remain vigilant about emerging trends in means . • Facilitate real-time electronic data collection by agencies to report and measure the level of suicidal crisis in the community.