The Salvation Army has been providing compassionate and responsive support services to the Australian community for over 100 years. Salvation Army services operating in over 900 centres across Australia provide counselling and active practical support designed to meet the needs of people who experience distress or hardship and particularly those who feel isolated or lonely and those who have lost hope. Our work brings us into regular contact with members of the Australian community whose lives have been devastated by the suicide of someone close to them.

The Salvation Army Hope for Life (funded by the Department of Health and Ageing) carries on this important work and provides a number of services to support people bereaved by suicide and at risk of suicide; including training programs and resources, Life Keeper Memory Quilt, the National Hope Line and commencing in 2011 Hope for Life Champions in various local communities across Australia.

QPR Suicide Prevention First Aid Training
QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) is three simple steps that anyone can learn to help save a life from suicide. Just as people trained in CPR help save thousands of lives each year, people trained in QPR learn how to recognise the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade, and refer someone to help.

QPR Training includes -

• Myths and facts about suicide
• Some warning signs of suicide
• How to apply QPR
• How to offer hope and support

The QPR Gatekeeper training is suitable for all community members and is accessed through the Hope for Life web site www.suicideprevention.salvos.org.au and takes approximately one hour to complete.

Living Hope Bereavement Support Training
Living Hope is a comprehensive program which aims to equip potential care givers to support individuals and families through the devastating experience of losing a loved one. The deep sense of anguish and loss and the myriad of emotions that people experience, the constant questioning Why? and What if? makes suicide grief different from other grief. It is critical that people in this situation are provided with practical support and opportunities to share their grief. People working across all sections of the health, education and welfare sectors are encouraged to undertake the Living Hope training course, which runs over two days. Living Hope raises awareness of the grief journey and enables community volunteers and professionals to provide appropriate support to individuals and families.

Living Hope can be accessed either through a ‘face to face’ twoday course or through ‘on line’ self paced delivery.

Hope for Life Champions
The Hope for Life Champion Initiative is all about change at a local level and helping communities to recognise that they can make a positive difference. By enlisting the help of motivated, educated and committed people (Champions) who can communicate effectively, advocate and engage with their local community, this project aims to build the capacity of Australians to help each other.

Specifically, through the work undertaken by Hope for Life Champions, it is hoped that communities will:

• increase their awareness of issues relating to suicide and suicide bereavement support;
• create more linkages between those at risk and existing support resources;
• become more proactive and active in not only suicide prevention activities, but also in providing support to those who have lost a loved one through suicide (e.g. undertaking training on line); and
• improve their ability to respond appropriately to those at risk of suicide and those bereaved by suicide.

Champions are not employed on a paid basis by The Salvation Army to act in this role, but rather they look for, and create, opportunities to champion the suicide prevention cause as part of their everyday life. They may do this by offering to speak at their local school assembly, putting up posters on local notice boards, visiting community centres and other relevant organisations to talk about Hope for Life or undertaking other activities in their local community that will help to educate others about suicide prevention and bereavement support issues.

Hope for Life is recruiting Champions and we will provide training and resources which will equip champions to be Agents of Hope in their local community.

For more information and to obtain a Champion application form, please contact stephanie.wilks@aue.salvationarmy.org or call on 02 9356 2120 or mobile 0435 967 265

www.suicideprevention.salvos.org.au