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

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community-led healing through suicide prevention, intervention, after care and postvention (101492)

Erin Reilly 1 , Malcolm Aston 1 , Gabrielle Mulcahy 2 , Neville Perkins 2
  1. Thirrili Ltd, Melbourne, VICTORIA, Australia
  2. ACT Health, Canberra, ACT, Australia

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people live with over double the rate of suicide and multiple suicide events in their families and communities compared to the general population reflecting the legacy of colonisation, the effects of intergenerational trauma, and systemic barriers to accessing social and emotional wellbeing supports. This presentation reviews the emerging body of literature on best-practice in suicide prevention and postvention programs that account for the impact of environmental factors, structural racism, systemic racism, and invisible barriers on closing the gap in the suicide of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. All suicide prevention must start from a lens of postvention to acknowledge that all Aboriginal people are impacted by suicide in some way. Suicide postvention programs and services are most likely to facilitate healing among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families when they are community-controlled, centred, and led, inclusive, self-determined, trauma-informed, and an expression of cultural values and beliefs. These factors inform the Thirrili model of postvention care, connection, and practice which adopts a holistic approach to postvention support where Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing and community-based solutions are the priority. The rationale for this model will be presented to highlight the distinct ways Country, community, and culture are central to healing and effective suicide postvention practice among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Case studies are reviewed to demonstrate how an Indigenous model of postvention can work to strengthen community capacity and self-determination, provide a pathway to improved SEWB, and achieve significant and sustained reduction in suicide among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people towards zero. We describe the co-design process that delivered self-determination for the service delivery model built in the ACT where the IP of the suicide postvention model is owned by the ACT Aboriginal community and Thirrili acts to facilitate the process. ACT Health provided space and support for Aboriginal community members to design a suicide prevention, intervention, after care and postvention service delivery model specific to their community needs.