Objectives
There is growing recognition for the need for alternatives before the Emergency Department and peer-based services for people experiencing suicidal thoughts and behaviours.
The aim of this project is to co-design a model for an innovative short-stay residential service for young people expressing suicidal thoughts and behaviours. The proposed service is informed by a model developed by UK charity Maytree, a short-term residential service for people in suicidal crisis providing a safe, confidential, non-medical environment for adults (www.maytree.org.uk). The co-designed model will be the first of its kind to be adapted for young people experiencing suicidal thoughts and behaviours and will adopt a peer-integrated workforce.
We will present the findings from the co-design of this service (The Luminos Project). We will describe the co-design process, the findings, the integration of the findings into the service and preliminary evaluation data.
Methods and Materials
We co-designed a model for a youth sanctuary through semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 38 young people (16-24 years) with lived or living experience of suicidal thoughts and/or behaviours, 11 parents/caregivers of young people who have lived or living experience of suicidal thoughts and/or behaviours and 26 stakeholders who work to support young people who are feeling suicidal.
A combination of deductive and inductive thematic analysis was conducted (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The structure of the interview schedule used for all three groups was used to form the deductive analysis in pre-existing themes. Within each of these themes, inductive thematic analysis was conducted to explore the concepts within each theme.
Results
The results will be described in pre-existing themes of: 1) benefits 2) design 3) staffing 4) operations 5) referrals 6) challenges and safety 7) measures of success and 8) language. The results will also outline how the co-design findings have informed the service development and implementation.
Conclusion
An integral step in suicide prevention reform is the involvement of lived experience to inform suicide prevention activity, and the expansion of peer (lived experience) workforce and community-based models. The Luminos Project has been co-designed with those with lived experience to provide trauma-informed and strengths-based support to young people experiencing suicidal thoughts. In doing so, it has created an innovative and best-practice residential support service for young people experiencing suicidal thoughts to the youth mental health service landscape in WA.