Every life lost to suicide is one too many.
The Hodgman Liberal Government is serious about suicide prevention and we welcome Tasmania being chosen as a site for a national suicide prevention trial.
The Federally funded trial, which will be coordinated by Primary Health Tasmania aims to increase our understanding of what strategies may be most effective in preventing suicide at a community level.
We know that well-designed and targeted suicide prevention strategies can work in reducing the number of deaths by suicide and doing this requires everyone to play a role, from individuals through to community groups, organisations and all levels of Government.
The trial will use the LifeSpan framework, developed by the Black Dog Institute (BDI) to build a safety net for the community by better connecting and coordinating suicide prevention activities.
The Tasmanian component of the trial will work in five communities, across the North and North West of the State, and focus on men aged 40 to 64 years, and men and women aged over 65 years.
The findings from the Tasmanian trial will be combined with findings from another 11 trial sites across the country to help us improve how we design and implement suicide prevention programs and initiatives in the future.
Every life lost to suicide comes at a huge personal cost to families, friends and communities and, in Tasmania, between 60 and 80 people take their own life each year.
That’s why the Government has developed a targeted and comprehensive Suicide Prevention Strategy and Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy with new services and programs being rolled out to support Tasmanians of all ages, including programs in schools to combat bullying.
As part of our Plan to Build Your Future we have gone a step further and set a target to reduce the suicide rate by 20 per cent by 2022.
We look forward to working with Primary Health Tasmania and the suicide prevention sector to increase the capacity of the Tasmanian community to respond to suicide.