Oral Presentation (max 25mins) The National Suicide Prevention Conference 2024

Alice Springs – more than just bad media. Suicide prevention in a remote context. (106326)

Nicole Pietsch 1
  1. Mental Health Association of Central Australia, East Side, NT, Australia

Suicide prevention in the Northern Territory comes with some unique challenges and opportunities. Unfortunately the Northern Territory has the highest rate of deaths from suicide in Australia, including the highest rate of suicide by children. Factors that influence this include remoteness of the population, lack of culturally appropriate and accessible services and prevalence of at-risk individuals and communities. Whilst remote suicide prevention service delivery can be challenging, there are strong Aboriginal Community controlled and community led organisations delivering critical services, working in partnership with Government and national agencies, with an increased investment in suicide prevention and postvention. Despite recent media portrayals, Alice Springs is a vibrant cultural community with a suicide prevention network that has been in running in some form since 1999 – a great example of the local collective commitment to reducing suicides. Learn more about the opportunities to support suicide prevention and postvention in remote Australia, and what best practice might look like in this context.