Manual of Resources for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention
Depression is a deep sadness that sticks around for weeks, months or even years. Sometimes, we don’t realise that we’re carrying it, or we don’t yarn about it. With the right support, you can begin healing your way for a better life.
Source: 13YARN
This fact sheet shares some types of things that might make us worry or feel ‘anxious’, and ways that respect our culture for dealing with these worries and feelings.
Source: 13YARN
Yarn up is a safe space for First Nations young people to connect with community, hear from others, and access wellbeing resources and support. It has been co-designed with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and young First Nations people, and includes:
– videos about social and emotional wellbeing and community connection
– strategies for self-care when people are feeling not good
– cartoons for younger kids.
Many of these resources are also included individually within the Manual of Resources.
Source: ReachOut Australia
Wellbeing and Healing through Connection and Culture
These guidelines were developed for health workers caring for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through death and dying. They are not specifically about suicide but include sections on sudden death and coronial investigations, and general explanation and advice to support culturally-responsive care of a dying person and their family.
Source: Queensland Health
The toolkit was intended for use to support suicide prevention and postvention responses in schools. It includes fact sheets to help teachers respond to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, that may also be valuable to other service providers:
Grief: how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people might respond to suicide
Remembering a young person: memorials and important events in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
Suicide in schools: information for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families
Self-care for school staff working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in remote areas
Suicide contagion for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people
Source: beyondblue
This clinical protocol aims to reduce deliberate self-harm and suicidal behaviour by ensuring that people at risk are able to access consistent levels of support across the Kimberley, including:
Appropriate screening and assessment
Effective follow-up and safety planning.
The protocol recognises the role in suicide and self-harm of historical and current trauma, grief and loss, racism, child abuse and neglect, cultural breakdown, family and domestic violence, homelessness, poverty and sexual assault.
It provides additional guidance on drug or alcohol dependence, acknowledging the complexities of supporting Indigenous people who experience these issues after an episode of self-harm.
Source: Kimberley Aboriginal Health Planning Forum
This app is designed to be used by service providers and clients in a client session. It is available in iOS and Android versions and facilitates discussion about:
Friends and family who help keep clients strong and healthy
Personal strengths relating to spiritual and cultural, physical, family, social and work, and mental and emotional aspects of clients’ lives – represented visually as leaves on a tree
Aspects of clients’ lives that take away their strength in the same four areas
Setting client-driven goals for change to work on
Plans for achieving their goals and steps towards goals
It includes screening based on K5 and K10 scales and help-seeking prompts for people who score high levels of psychological distress.
A youth version of the AIMhi app, AIMhi-y, is under development but not yet available for download. It is funded by Northern Territory PHN as part of the National Suicide Prevention Trial.
Source: Menzies School of Health Research
Nathan Sutherland – one of only two hundred psychologists in Australia who identify as Aboriginal – talks about how to seek support from friends, family, community and healthcare professionals.
Source: Desert Pea Media/WNSWPHN
“An online collection of resources to support the work of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander frontline health and wellbeing workforces, including:
community health and wellbeing workers
mental health workers
family support
education and youth services.
The resources focus on social and emotional wellbeing, access to culture, healing and safety planning.”