headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation

Chris Tanti - CEO

Why headspace? • 75% of mental and substance use disorders start before the age

of 25

– Need to target young people

• Disorders have a ‘trajectory’ or ‘stage’

– Intervene as early as possible for better outcomes

• Many young people do not seek help, or seek help late

– Change knowledge, attitudes and behaviour

• Many young people feel uncomfortable with existing services

– Create youth friendly services

• Mental disorders can have major psychosocial complications

(e.g. school drop out)

– Need a holistic focus (symptom and social recovery) through

multidisciplinary team and service links

Pre headspace

GPs

Mental Health Service

School

Centrelink

Care and Protection

Services

Support Services

Family

Housing

Young Person

Specialist care

AOD Services

The headspace Platform

Young Person in

their environment

Mental health

Physical health

Vocational support

AOD support

Other supports as

needed

Shared and coordinated

care

Our Centres

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headspace School Support

headspace School Support

headspace School Support provides advice, support and

assistance to school communities to reduce and minimise the

devastation and impact following the suicide death of a student.

headspace School Support has multidisciplinary teams

operating throughout Australia to deliver a nationally endorsed,

evidence based, consistent and co-ordinated approach to suicide

postvention services for young people, parents and staff in

schools.

Why Postvention?

Experiencing the death of someone to suicide can have a

devastating effect on individuals and communities.

An appropriate and timely response to suicide can reduce the

impact on those affected and aid in the recovery of the school

community.

The provision of an evidence based postvention response can

lower the risk of subsequent suicides and provide resilience to

those young people at risk or vulnerable.

Postvention support is prevention.

A continuum of suicide- related behaviour in adolescents

Suicidal thoughts / feelings

Lifetime: 29.9%

Past year: 24%

Suicide attempt

Lifetime: 12-17%

Past year: 5-10%

Suicide

In 2011 age 15-19 115 deaths by suicide

Age standardised suicide rates in Australia: 15-24 year olds (ABS 2012)

Contagion & clusters

Process of contagion whereby one persons suicide influences

another person to attempt suicide (O'Carroll & Potter, 1994)

Suicide clusters are common among young people (Hazell,1993);

as well as indigenous communities (Hanssens & Hanssens, 2007;

Wilkie et al, 1998); prisoners (McKenzie & Keane, 2007) and

people with mental illness (McKenzie et al, 2005)

Contagion and Clusters

For every young person who dies by suicide, significantly more

are negatively affected

Between 1-5% of youth suicides are thought to be part of a cluster

(Gould et al, 1987)

Contagion is thought to be a key factor in 60% of all youth

suicides (Davidson et al, 1989)

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hSS Service Components

Models of mental health promotion / suicide prevention (Mrazek and Haggerty 1994)

Indicated interventions

For those known to be at risk: e.g. psychological therapy / follow-up care post suicide

attempt2

Selective interventions

For those displaying risk factors for suicidal behaviour: e.g. GP education

programs1 / gatekeeper training1 / screening programs2

Universal interventions

For whole populations: e.g. restricting access to means1; sensitive media reporting2; awareness

raising / health promotion programs

Collaborations

School Support

Education Departments

and Authorities

School Principals and

Leadership Teams

Health Departments and services

Community Services

Raising the need

Sheree video

In Practice - Victoria

The foundation:

1) Agreed collaborative approach to responding to a suicide with

Education Department, Catholic Education Office and

Independent Schools Association and Department of Health

2) Local partnerships with school networks, Principals, school

based welfare staff, Tertiary Mental Health Services and

relevant Community Services

3) Circulars to all school Principals from the Director General

Education Department and CEO of Catholic Education Office

4) Joint promotion of State issued suicide postvention guidelines

and working collaboratively to implement these in schools

In Practice

The communication channels:

• headspace School Support is notified of a death by suicide

from the Department/Authority through their critical incident

reporting mechanisms

• Preliminary conversations between Department/Authority reps,

headspace School Support and Tertiary Mental Health Service

about the initial response and support to the school, including

identifying the primary co-ordinating body

• Agreed roles and functions

• Daily communication through interagency briefings to ensure

collaborative response and consistent messaging

In Practice

Initial support:

• Provision of advice, support and assistance to the school

leadership team to apply an evidence lead response in the

school which includes:

– Informing teachers, staff, parents, students and key adults

who interact with affected students (bus driver, sporting

coach etc)

– Supporting staff with their own grief and response

– Supporting staff to provide support to young people

including the identification and support of young people

who may be vulnerable to contagion

– Managing media, social media and the narrative (stories)

that arise

In Practice

Ongoing support and collaboration:

In partnership with school personnel, departmental reps and key

local services a recovery plan is negotiated for the next 12 to 18

months that focuses on supporting and managing grief

responses, resilience and prevention activities

To date

Between October 2012 and September 2013 we have:

• Had contact with 774 schools

• Provided support to schools following a death by suicide 52

times

• Recruited a staff team of 40 spread across Australia

• Provided suicide risk assessment training to more than 300

people who work in secondary schools

• Provided 166 secondary consultations to school welfare staff

• Worked with more than 300 schools to commence preparing

postvention response plans and build capacity in their schools

Thank you