Mindframe Plus wrap up: Country South Australia
The Mindframe Plus team has recently wrapped up a road trip around South Australia’s “iron triangle”, delivering training on how to safely communicate about suicide.
We partnered with the Country South Australia Primary Health Network (PHN) to deliver the targeted and tailored training to health and suicide prevention professionals, media and community members in Kadina, Port Pirie, Whyalla and Port Lincoln.
During the trip, the team engaged with more than 65 people from a variety of backgrounds, to facilitate connections and generate conversations about what suicide prevention messaging looks like for Country South Australia and how it could be improved.
Everymind, Project Lead Alexandra Culloden explains, “Mindframe Plus is a great opportunity to bring together a range of local professionals to discuss the importance of safe communication about suicide. Training allows local areas to help facilitate processes we discuss and ensure they are followed in their local area” Alex said.
The Mindframe Plus training is broken down into two components: training with local professionals who play a role in suicide prevention in their community; and training with local journalists and media professionals.
The first component was completed over two locations, Port Pirie and Whyalla, via full-day workshops. The team engaged with representatives from the local headspace centres, Country and Outback Health, Lifeline, Red Cross, Mission Australia, community spokespeople and many others.
During these workshops participants had the opportunity to have input into what safe communication could look like in their local community. At the end of the sessions, participants acknowledged that one of the benefits of the Mindframe Plus training was the facilitators’ collaborative approach.
The Mindframe Plus team acknowledges that those present, were the experts in their own community, and therefore ensured that they built on the work that had already been started, to ensure each workshop and training session was specific to the needs of the community.
Mental Health & AOD Manager, Chez Curnow said The National Suicide Prevention Trial has enabled equity in access to the Mindframe Plus training for locations across rural South Australia.
“The Mindframe Plus training was extremely thought-provoking, and it’s important to remember how statistics may be used in reporting. The increase in knowledge and capacity building in these communities will be invaluable for future collaborative responses and unified voices across Mental Health and Suicide Prevention” Chez said.
The media has an important role to play in influencing social attitudes towards, and perceptions of, suicide and mental ill-health. With this in mind, the team were able to introduce local journalists in Kadina, Port Pirie, Whyalla and Port Lincoln to their local PHN as well as health professionals and others working in suicide prevention.
By connecting journalists with the local experts, the Mindframe Plus team aim to improve the accuracy of stories, and ensure that advice and expert comment for future stories is always available.
The Mindframe Plus team will continue to work closely with the Country South Australia PHN and media in the area to support the development of a localised media plan, which will look at both proactive and reactive communications.
If you would like to know more about Mindframe Plus training or the work we do to support Primary Health Networks please contact the team via our contact form.