FRONTLINE crisis support workers are aiming to fill a gap in suicide bereavement and prevention in Ballarat.
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Lifeline Ballarat will host a structured, four-week closed support program for people affected by suicide.
While the city has peer-support program Survivors of Suicide, there has been a lack of funding for a professionally facilitated program. Lifeline Ballarat will deliver this program with a funding boost from Ballarat and District Suicide Prevention Network.
Bereavement specialist Anita Hoare, who will be one of two program facilitators, said lots of good can happen when people affected by suicide share experience in a group setting.
Ms Hoare said people bereaved by suicide were at a high risk of suicide and postvention in a group helped to normalise their experience.
“The idea is sharing complex feelings of guilt and shame, feelings of being stigmatised and ostracised,” Ms Hoare said. “...(In groups) people are able to talk about trauma experience because often people can’t otherwise find a way to talk about it and this can help them find their narrative.”
A health and wellbeing survey by Australian Bureau of Statistics (2007) found for every suicide, there were 135 people affected by it.
The program works on education, mutual support and coping development in this ripple effect of grief.
Lifeline Ballarat will host the program on four consecutive Tuesday evenings from late May, with a commitment to all four sessions required due to program structure.
Ms Hoare said the program would offer coping strategies, but participants in such groups tended to also learn and model strategies from each other.
Lifeline Ballarat with Ballarat and District Suicide Prevention Network is also still in partnership to train 100 community members in safeTALK – how to best approach a loved one, work colleague or neighbour, who might be suicidal or have suicidal tendencies.
- READ MORE: How taking one minute could save a life
Those wanting to take part in the suicide bereavement support group must register interest with Lifeline Ballarat on 5322 4996 by May 26.
- For crisis support: Lifeline 13 11 14.