Culture, community and connection will be driving the conversation during an Indigenous suicide prevention forum In Brisbane this week.
The Indigenous Suicide Prevention Forum begins today in Meanjin/Brisbane and will be gathering Indigenous Elders, psychologists and academics in order to save lives through culture-based outreach programs, online supports and staff training devices.
The forum comes as earlier this month, the Productivity Commission’s latest report on Closing the Gap highlighted indigenous suicide as an area of key concern.
Psychology professor from the University of Western Australia Pat Dudgeon, a Bardi woman from the Kimberly will be among the speakers at the forum.
Dudgeon, a key architect of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project said that she believes that the forum will be a great way for experts across the country to share their knowledge.
“It’s an opportunity for us to come together and to share what’s been happening and what people have been doing, what good programs have been developed and how they are travelling and what the issues are,” she said.
Lived experienced is also set to play a key role in the forum with people who have personal experiences with suicide expected to talk as well.
“How can we discuss anything without a person or people who have been through that particular situation?
That just adds to the wisdom and practicality of anything we do,” Professor Dudgeon said.
The three-day forum is expected to come to an end on Thursday.
