Supajai Gym was built in the memory of two young men, Jai and Mitchell, who lost their lives to suicide. It is a welcoming place promoting positive well-being and suicide prevention "through Muay Thai and open conversations about mental health", Ms Purdon said, and it was the Stradbroke Island community's way of moving forward.

Ms Purdon, a suicide awareness advocate with lived experience, put forward this gym as an example in a national Mindframe address to media on suicide numbers in the Australian Bureau of Statistics annual cause of death data, released on Wednesday.

Ms Purdie said it was vital to consider how each number represents not just a life lost but the challenges they faced and those who are left in the wake.

"So, we can easily get discouraged or caught up in counting the people that didn't get our support and forget those who still need it and those who work hard to make that support available," Ms Purdon said.

"People like [gym owner] Sandy and the Supajai Gym, these are the stories we need to be telling and the places we need to be throwing our support. If there's one thing 2021 has taught me, it's in the communities who are connected and care."

Ms Purdon said last year's challenges featured pandemic lockdowns, flooding, freedom rallies and the start to a Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.

National Mental Health Commission chief executive Christine Morgan and National Suicide Prevention Office lead Michael Gardner said there was both a need and opportunities to better respond to life circumstances that increase distress.

IN OTHER NEWS

There were 3144 confirmed deaths by suicide in Australia last year, ABS data shows. Everymind director Jaelea Skehan, in presenting the data, said the rate of lives lost to suicide had modestly decreased from 13.1 per 100,000 people to 12 per 100,000 people in the past three years.

Dr Skehan said almost 90 per cent of people who died by suicide had at least one risk factor reported before their death with an average of three per person.

The top five risks across all ages last year were found to be: mood disorders (37.5 per cent), suicidal ideation (24.6 per cent), relationship issues (24 per cent) high alcohol use (20.6 per cent) and self-harm history (20.5 per cent).

Ms Morgan and Dr Gardner reiterated the need for more timely and nuanced data, not just in deaths, to look further "upstream" in suicide prevention, such as tackling risk factors.

Ballarat and District Suicide Prevention Awareness chairman and police officer Des Hudson said this all tells us there needs to be more support in areas across a whole range of risk factors in communities when trauma happens - and trauma was "not just physical".

"We want support services that wrap around a person and hopefully see funding for extra support...In Looking at risks we can strengthen supports, such as more financial counsellors, more relationship counsellors as well as more messaging that it's okay to not be okay," Leading Senior Constable Hudson said.

"Even to people in the community who are bereaved or have lost employment, this is a reminder to check in on people a lot more. We can forget about the simple things that can be the most meaningful; we can get caught in our own worlds and often just touching base with others can make a big difference.

"It is a real Australianism to say everything is all right when what someone has gone through is significant and life-changing."

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