Frontier Services' mission: Cultivating hope through suicide prevention in the bush

In today’s social landscape, one could argue that children in rural and remote parts of Australia have never been better connected. Twenty years ago, a child’s interactions with others their age might have been limited mainly to the school grounds or a footy field. Today, these interactions can extend to wherever a data signal is within reach.

Technology has transformed how we communicate and manage our relationships. It is arguably having the most significant impact on young people. It means that for those living in the bush, opportunities for regular connection have expanded beyond their immediate communities. Instead of a drive or a lengthy bike ride, family and friends can be reached immediately and at any time. It can, in theory, help to overcome the barrier of distance that so often isolates people from developing and maintaining social connections critical to their mental health. But we know that it often isn’t as simple as that.

Children living in rural and remote areas are particularly vulnerable to the impact of isolation, with research finding that 48%—nearly half—face high or very high risk of social exclusion. In the most extreme cases, this can ultimately lead to a young person taking their own life.

Early experiences of social exclusion, including lack of access to health services, vulnerability in early childhood development and limited connection to community and supports, can carry significant and life-long social, emotional, and financial costs.

Because smaller rural and remote communities are often so tight-knit, when a young person tragically takes their own life, there can be a ripple effect within their familial and social circles. This can lead to what are called ‘suicide clusters’, where a single occurrence of suicide can influence multiple others in a short period of time.

Lindsay Ginn, a Bush Chaplain at Frontier Services, serves remote communities in and around Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. Lindsay has recently started running Safe Talk workshops to raise awareness around suicide. It follows extensive training undertaken with Living Works, an organisation specialising in suicide prevention skills training.

For Lindsay, the workshops have been a revelation. He shares, “The whole program is set out really well. It's a combination of me talking through the information and then also using what's called a ‘co-trainer’. That's a recorded person doing parts of the session. I just find it's very easy to understand and very powerful.”

Through the workshops, Lindsay can equip participants with the means to better identify people who are at-risk, and intervene before a situation escalates. He explains that within smaller and more isolated communities, young people do not have the same access to support services as in more centralised and populated areas, and so having widespread awareness is even more critical.

Lindsay continues, “One of the biggest issues we have in a lot of regional areas is support staff come and go. It's just a constant, roundabout really, of people coming and going, which makes it hard for people trying to access help.”

While Lindsay’s suicide awareness workshops are based on a foundation of accredited training, he is able to truly reach his audience because of the trust he has built over the years, often using his gift in music to open doors.

He says, “I use music as a doorway into these communities. Everyone wants to have music, and I know music. So that's a way to get into places. Once I establish a relationship, I can branch out and do things like the Safe Talk suicide awareness workshops run by Living Works.”