Dom White C O F F S C O A S T S U I C I D E P R E V E N T I O N I N I T I AT I V E
The Coffs Coast Suicide Prevention Initiative is doing vital work in our community. Wesley LifeForce has been supporting community-based suicide prevention networks around Australia for over 20 years, so when the community approached the Coffs Wesley team, it wasn’t long before a network was in place. We spoke to outgoing Chair/Coordinator Dom White about the initiative.
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uicide impacts a significant portion of the population. What does your team find are the biggest barriers to discussing mental health and suicide prevention? For people living with their own suicidal thoughts it is often very difficult to put up their hand and say ‘this is what’s going on for me and I need help’. When we feel like that, we lose touch with our rational problem-solving skills, and so we know that loss of capacity really impacts people getting help. For people who are trying to support someone they’re worried about, it can be a terrifying experience. Yet, being equipped with skills in how to support someone in this situation is really not spoken about in our society. Often people are scared that if they talk about the topic it will increase its prevalence. For people who have lost someone, it is such 92 COFFS COAST focus
a horribly isolating experience, because there is definitely still so much misunderstanding in the community around someone taking their own life, and it impacts people sharing about their losses. Research demonstrates that when we speak about the topic of suicide in a safe, appropriate way using appropriate terminology, it does not lead to increased incidence. It actually empowers a community to look for strategies and solutions to prevent it, and it may also positively impact the experience of bereavement. The free one-day Suicide Prevention Training sessions offered by Wesley LifeForce sound like a fantastic resource. Can you share what these sessions involve and how they benefit participants? The training is designed to give people the skills, knowledge and confidence to support people at risk of suicide in their community or
workplace. It aims to educate people about suicide, to challenge attitudes and teaches basic engagement and suicide intervention skills. The training really does equip someone with the tools to help save a life. Fluro Friday at the Coffs Jetty has become a popular weekly event. How did this initiative start, and what kind of impact have you seen it have on participants? Fluro Friday is part of the OneWave movement for mental health awareness, which started about 11 years ago at Bondi Beach. A young man had been really suffering with his mental health and always found surfing was really helpful to his state of mind. One morning he threw on a fluro suit and jumped on his board and spent some time out in the surf. When he was coming in, someone jokingly said ‘are you just coming home from a night out or something’, and he was really honest, and said ‘I’m really struggling but I wanted to