By Rachael McMahon, APS Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Unit, APSC
Compassion. Connection. Understanding: Building a suicide prevention culture in the APS
The impacts of suicide and suicidal behaviour are far-reaching. In Australia on average every year:
- Nine people will die by suicide every day.
- Over 400,000 people are impacted by suicide.
- 65,000 people will attempt suicide (National Suicide Prevention Adviser, 2020).
Suicide prevention is a key priority for the Australian Government and has been recognised as requiring a whole-of-government approach. In response to recommendations arising from the National Suicide Prevention Adviser’s Final Advice, the Australian Public Service Commission (the Commission), through the recently established APS Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Unit (the Unit) is leading a whole-of-service approach to building the suicide prevention capability of the APS.
As part of this approach, Compassionate Foundations, a new skills-led suicide prevention capability suite has been developed specifically for the APS. You can access the eLearning modules through APSLearn. The Unit is working closely with agencies across the service to ensure an effective roll out of the suite to their workforces.
“The APS is on the cusp of an important cultural shift. Compassionate Foundations supports whole-of-service efforts to develop and firmly embrace a suicide prevention culture across the workforce."
Rachael McMahon, Principal Psychologist and Director of the Unit.
The six module eLearning suite has been through an extensive consultation process and was endorsed by a secondary review panel with lived experience, human resources and academic expertise and representation from Suicide Prevention Australia as the peak industry body.
Connie Galati, Senior Clinical Psychologist, said a key point of difference that sets Compassionate Foundations apart from other suicide prevention intervention approaches is that instead of focusing on risk assessment, it focuses on the relationship between people.
“Compassionate Foundations is based on contemporary upstream suicide prevention approaches. The suite equips staff to recognise and respond compassionately to signs of early distress, rather than waiting until a person is acutely distressed or suicidal"
Connie Galati, Senior Clinical Psychologist.
“Traditionally, suicide prevention capability training for the public sector has focused at the point of suicidal distress with intervention sitting purely in the health field. Contemporary suicide prevention, which has been driven by people with lived experience of suicidal distress and suicidal bereavement, suggests that we need to move away from this old way of thinking. Rather, we need to consider how all of us, as members of a community, can intervene early, before suicidal distress occurs.”
Compassionate Foundations takes a positive, human-to-human approach to interactions that promote connection and understanding. It is designed to complement, not replace, an agency’s longer-form suicide intervention training.
Rachael acknowledges that although suicide can be a distressing and challenging topic,
“For agencies to be truly suicide aware, we must normalise conversations about suicide prevention. The Commission is committed to linking agencies to resources, supports and opportunities to share and connect, and to helping to light the path ahead for the APS to build a suicide prevention culture that equips it to serve our Australian community."
Modules are interactive, providing staff with theory, real-world scenarios, micro-skills development and the opportunity to evaluate their knowledge.
Connie said adopting a trauma-informed approach is key to this suite being suitable for the service-as-a-whole.
“Being trauma-informed requires us as individuals to be able to compassionately and proactively respond to the needs of people. The context in which we work is also key; a whole-of-agency approach ensures our policies, procedures, and work practices all reflect a trauma-informed approach, which in turn better protects ourselves, our colleagues, and the people we work with,” Connie said.
“As staff work through the six modules, not only are they able to understand and apply compassion-based suicide prevention principles in their day-to-day work, they are essentially acknowledging that every single person in our APS has the opportunity to positively impact on someone who may be at risk of experiencing distress, and potentially, save a life.”
Participant feedback following pilot-testing of the suite included:
“This is a fantastic module and I feel better equipped to deal with staff in distress, and will keep these skills on hand for the future in both my professional and personal life.”
“This training is invaluable for all APS staff. It provides clear, concise information with practical examples. I believe the training will be a valuable resource for all staff, from new starters, to experienced allied health professionals.”
Compassionate Foundations has been developed by and for the Australian Public Service. As Rachael outlines, “Suicide prevention is not solely the work of health practitioners or APS staff working in frontline areas, we all need to be part of a wave of change. This includes staff at all levels across the APS - whether you’re a policy officer, in IT or finance, and more broadly everyone in our society.”
For more information on Compassionate Foundations please email MHSP@apsc.gov.au.
To access the eLearning modules, register through APSLearn.
