The past week has been massive for the message of suicide prevention. Last Wednesday 10 September was World Suicide Prevention #WSPD14 which centred on the theme of ‘Suicide Prevention: One World Connected’. The theme ‘reflected the fact that connections are important at several levels if we are to combat suicide – at an individual level, cross support services, and cross country/countries’. Find out more here – http://wspd.org.au
The following day was #RUOKDay on Thursday 11 September which is a campaign to encourage people to ask their mates R U OK? to start a conversation which could ultimately save a life. Find out more here – http://ruok.org.au
Both are great campaigns to get people to thinking about suicide and how to combat it. It was hot news on social media particularly on Twitter, in fact Save Our Mob’s twitter received a lot of traffic during this week. Here are some of the highlights;
Although these campaigns shine a light on suicide prevention, are we doing enough to follow through to fight suicide? Helen Christensen from the ABC’s The Drum seems to think not…In fact she believes Australia has a ‘scattergun approach’ to suicide.
Read her article here – Our scattergun suicide prevention isn’t enough – Helen Christensen
What do you think of Helen’s article? Do you think her comments are fair? Check out the comments on Helen’s article to get a sense of what others are saying. Leave your comments below.