Our team at Larter Consulting is pleased to see the publication of the Guide to Local Suicide Prevention, by the Victorian Department of Health. The Guide will support local community groups, local organisations, government agencies, and peak bodies to develop, co-design, and deliver local suicide prevention and response activities.
What Is the Guide to Local Suicide Prevention?
The Guide to Local Suicide Prevention provides practical direction for communities, organisations and government agencies developing place-based suicide prevention activities. It brings together evidence, local knowledge and lived experience to help communities identify priorities, strengthen partnerships and develop responses suited to local circumstances. Rather than applying a single model everywhere, the suicide guide supports locally informed planning that reflects the needs, strengths and resources of each community. Larter Consulting contributed to the development of the Guide by reviewing trial data and translating evaluation findings into practical recommendations for communities.
Understanding Local Suicide Prevention
Effective local suicide prevention requires an understanding of the needs, strengths and circumstances of the communities being served. Local data, community perspectives and knowledge of existing services can help healthcare organisations identify priorities and develop prevention approaches that are relevant to local populations.
Beginning in 2016, the Victorian Government invested in place-based suicide prevention trials to prevent and respond to suicide in local communities. The Guide draws on the knowledge base developed through the trials across 12 sites over six years of operation, offering practical advice from people with lived experience of suicidality and bereavement.
Behind each and every suicide are a wide range of factors. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to suicide prevention, without considering unique and varying needs of individuals and communities at risk of suicide.
A place-based approach to suicide prevention engages local community members as active participants in developing solutions and works with local skills, expertise, and resources to deliver a range of suicide prevention activities that are specific to community needs. The Guide places an emphasis on the need for a tailored approach to suicide prevention in each location and serves as an example for communities, not only in Victoria but across the country.
How Place-Based Suicide Prevention Works
Place-based suicide prevention starts with understanding the people, services, risks and protective factors within a specific community. Local organisations can use community consultation, available data and lived-experience perspectives to identify priorities and shape appropriate prevention activities. This approach also encourages collaboration between primary healthcare providers, ,community organisations, councils and other local stakeholders. For communities developing suicide prevention strategies, the focus is not simply on individual services but on building a coordinated local response that improves connections, strengthens protective factors and supports earlier access to appropriate help.
The trials have brought together local businesses, services, and community groups that otherwise might seem so-far removed from one another from local councils to barber shops, from hospitals to yarning circles, and from police to skate parks. Despite their differences, all parts of each Victorian community came together to work with, and learn from, people with lived experience of suicide.
Strengthening Community and Service Partnerships
Suicide prevention is not the responsibility of a single organisation or service. Stronger collaboration between primary healthcare providers, mental health services, community organisations, government and local stakeholders can support more coordinated prevention efforts and improve connections between people and appropriate support.
The Guide advises to supplement local experience with existing research and local practitioner knowledge/skills. Balancing these three factors enables each locality to develop solutions that are based on local evidence. This, then, ensures that the solutions respond to the unique needs of each community.
Larter Consulting was engaged by the Department of Health to review the data from the trials, and to translate the learnings of an evaluation into practical and actionable suggestions for communities. The Guide is both a reflection on the achievements and learnings over six years, as well as providing guidance for Australian communities looking to take on community-based suicide prevention work. This is particularly helpful with bilateral commitments to suicide prevention, including coordination functions, for all 31 Primary Health Networks across Australia.
This is a helpful resource to be shared with your colleagues, networks, and members. In particular, in conjunction with this month being National Mental Health Month, the Guide provides us with an opportunity to further reflect on how mental health concerns have come to the fore in primary health care sector.
Building Stronger Local Suicide Prevention Partnerships
Successful community-based suicide prevention depends on collaboration across the local health and social care system. Primary Health Networks, community organisations, healthcare providers, local government and people with lived experience can each contribute different knowledge, relationships and resources. Larter supports organisations to bring these perspectives together through community health needs assessment, service planning, evaluation and co-design. Linking local evidence with community priorities can help identify service gaps, strengthen referral pathways and inform prevention activities that are practical, culturally responsive and relevant to the population.
Using Evidence to Guide Prevention Planning
Evidence can help communities and health organisations understand where prevention efforts are most needed and whether existing approaches are achieving their intended objectives. Evaluation of suicide prevention programs can examine implementation, stakeholder experiences, reach and outcomes, helping organisations refine future initiatives.
Conclusion
Effective local suicide prevention depends on understanding community needs and bringing relevant organisations, services and stakeholders together around shared priorities. Stronger coordination, meaningful community engagement and evidence-informed planning can help communities identify gaps and strengthen prevention efforts. Ongoing evaluation can then provide valuable evidence to refine programs and support more responsive local health systems.
Contact us to discuss consulting support for suicide prevention or the development of mental health resources.
Frequently Asked Questions
Local suicide prevention involves coordinated efforts to understand community needs, strengthen protective factors, improve connections to appropriate services, and support evidence-informed prevention strategies.
Communities differ in population characteristics, service availability, geography, resources and local priorities. Understanding these differences helps organisations develop prevention approaches that are more relevant to the people they aim to support.
Depending on the local context, planning can involve health services, mental health organisations, community groups, government agencies, Primary Health Networks, people with lived experience and other relevant stakeholders.
PHNs can support local planning by using population data, engaging stakeholders, identifying service gaps, supporting coordination and contributing to approaches that respond to local health and wellbeing priorities.
People may interact with multiple health and community services. Better coordination can help organisations work toward shared priorities, strengthen referral pathways and reduce fragmentation across the support system.