CaLD Community Connections - Suicide Prevention Project
Suicide Prevention
CALD Community Connections Project
There has been a growing concern about the risk of suicide and suicidality within culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities, especially in the light of significant increases in the numbers of people arriving in Tasmania as refugee and humanitarian entrants. It has been postulated that the pre-arrival and settlement experiences of these groups may make them particularly vulnerable to a range of mental health problems, including suicide.An analysis of the Phoenix Centre client histories and consultations with community groups have indicated that suicide risk has been increased where people have experienced extreme interpersonal isolation associated with their dislocation from their countries of origin, exhibited serious mental health or health symptoms, and were difficult to engage. Unemployment, financial hardship, racism, family conflict and breakdown, intergenerational conflict and lack of control over lives, drug and alcohol use and family violence have all emerged as concerns among the African communities. Older migrants are facing another range of concerns, especially as they reach late life tasks.
The primary goal of this project is to increase the capacity for prevention, intervention and postvention management of suicide-related crises in refugee and other vulnerable migrant communities and associated support services in Tasmania.
This is a two year community suicide prevention project that works to increase wellbeing, reduce suicide risk and enhance capacity for individuals to respond to suicidal crises within CaLD communities in Tasmania. The project primarily achieves this through the delivery of information packages, workshops, training programs and support groups. The projects services are open to all CaLD Clients in Tasmania with a particular focus on specific groups identified as being at need. CaLD Community Connection is a state wide Tasmanian project. The project develops supports groups for men, women and youth. The youth groups initiative includes school holiday camps which aim to build social connectiveness by encouraging participants to talk about issues in their lives, increase their self-esteem and so forth. CaLD Community Connections also provides individual support for people at risk, including assessment of suicide risk and where appropriate, counselling and referral to other services.
This project is progressing extremely well under the guidance of Lynn Lee. We have met all our objectives for the first year of the project and anticipate that all objectives will be met by the end of the contract (July 2011).
This project features in the current Life Communications E-News as well as the Living is for Everyone website.
