Khalaf, A
Galati, C
McMahon, R

Government employees regularly interact with people experiencing distress, adversity or hardship. However, suicide prevention has historically been considered the work of health portfolios or clinical practitioners. Contemporary suicide prevention approaches have progressed from focusing on individuals at the point of crisis towards recognising suicide as multi-faceted and requiring non-clinical, community-based initiatives. With recent changes to Australian suicide prevention public policy, the Australian Public Service Commission has developed and rolled out a new suicide prevention capability initiative called Compassionate Foundations. Compassionate Foundations is a six module e-learning program underpinned by an interdisciplinary approach to suicide prevention, drawing on Joiner’s interpersonal theory of suicide, trauma informed principles, psychological first aid, social identity and compassion theory. It was developed in response to the Final Advice of the National Suicide Prevention Adviser, who recommended the uplift of public sector suicide prevention capability. Compassionate Foundations is a community-based early intervention approach to suicide prevention, where APS staff learn skills to recognise and respond to vulnerability and distress before suicidal distress occurs. Suicide prevention skills are framed around relationships, rather than risk assessment, with concepts carefully chosen to destigmatise the experience of suicidal distress. One of the unique features of this training is the use of lived experience to share their living wisdom and stories in support of suicide prevention. Compassionate Foundations is accredited by Suicide Prevention Australia, and has had over 6000 registrations across 100 APS agencies and has also been rolled out into several states and territories. Evaluation of the program has demonstrated that the suite was valuable in building participants’ capability in suicide prevention, with 96% intending to implement the knowledge and skills learnt, 94% recommending the training to others, and 92% reporting overall confidence in their ability to support someone in suicidal distress. This presentation will highlight the impact of Compassionate Foundations as a leading suicide prevention capability suite for an Australian government workforce, and the required contextual implementation to ensure organisational culture change across the Australian Public Service.

Learning outcome 1: Understand how a community response to suicide can build capability in an industry not traditionally associated with suicide prevention.
Learning outcome 2: Understand the relevant psychological skills which can be generalised to support those in suicidal distress.