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Specialist learning pathway, and extra information, for members of Australian Counselling Association

This focus area includes specialist resources for those involved in health and other clinical services, such as General Practitioners, Nurses, Psychologists, and those involved in other allied health work.

Here is an archive of Suicide Prevention Australia webinars.  Each webinar is recorded, and then edited for future reference, or presentations are uploaded for your on-going learning.

There is growing evidence that social, economic and environmental factors, such as cost of living, unemployment, and isolation are associated with an increased risk of suicidal behaviour. Understanding how socio-economic and environmental factors affect the risk of suicidal behaviour is important to better inform strategies to reduce suicide in Australia. As suicide is complex it is difficult to attribute any one determinants as a cause of suicide but they can have a cumulative and detrimental effect on suicidal thoughts and behaviour. 

This area can be studied at a general level by considering the cumulative risk of various determinants, or by learning about specific and individual socio-economic and environmental determinants, while recognising the interaction between the determinants.

Suicide prevention strategies include the provision of training, learning and development activities for a diverse range of people. Training may be delivered to raise awareness, develop gatekeepers and intervention skills, as well as to help individuals develop resilience, self-care, and help seeking skills. This area of learning is for people who are involved in the delivery of learning resources and includes information on both train-the-trainer-type activities, along with research into learning strategies.

LGBTIQA+ encompasses a diverse range of sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, reflecting a broad range of human experiences. LGBTIQA+ people have higher rates of mental ill-health and suicide than the general population in Australia. Evidence shows that the elevated risk of suicidality is strongly linked with the continuing experience of stigma, discrimination and exclusion, and the subsequent trauma from these experiences. LGBTIQA+ individuals still face discrimination from familial, personal and workplace connections. 

Whilst we have come a long way, there is still work to be done to ensure LGBTIQA+ people are properly included in Australia’s health planning and policy.

Many people in Defence and veteran communities encounter difficulties when transiting out of Defence, and afterwards. There are high suicide rates present for veterans compared to the general population, but not for currently serving personnel. While some problems tend to occur at the point of transition, some solutions need to be implemented far earlier. Issues that are interrelated include moral injury, social isolation, negative Defence culture and support services and transition.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are disproportionately affected by suicide via several social factors, such as poverty, physical and mental health, incarceration, and intergenerational trauma, which are commonly the long-term results of colonisation and systemic racism.

Loneliness refers to the feeling an individual perceives that the quality or quantity of social relationships they have is less than what they desire, and Social Isolation is an objective measure of the number of friends, family, or other social connections that an individual has and the frequency of contact they have with these social connections. Isolation and loneliness can have significant impacts on mental and physical health, and research has shown that social isolation poses more significant health risk than smoking, poor diet and lack of exercise.

Financial insecurity or financial distress can include income inadequacy, poverty, low income, low socio-economic status, income uncertainty, debt burden, cost of living strain, and impacts of the global economy. In Australia, the likelihood of dying by suicide is higher among Australians in the lowest income group compared to those in the highest income group, and those with higher income uncertainty have a higher probability of dying by suicide than those with lower income uncertainty.

This area includes contact with the criminal justice system, all forms of incarceration (including forensic mental health), and family law and custody disputes. People who come into contact with the criminal justice system die by suicide at a higher rate than the general population, and this difference is higher for Indigenous Australians. Many who come into contact with the criminal justice system also experience chronic instability, abuse, neglect, and entrenched, intergenerational disadvantage, all of which can increase one's risk of dying by suicide.

Research proposals and submissions for review for Suicide Prevention PhD Scholarships 2024. This area can only be accessed by invitation and requires an enrolment key.

For more information on Suicide Prevention Research Grants, please click here