Supporting Whānau to Understand & Prevent Suicide

We had another powerful training with Peter Thorburn earlier this month focused on supporting whanau to understand and prevent suicide. We worked on this training with the Youth Well Being project, and people involved in the network came to attend the training on the day. It became a powerful platform to talk about the pain and struggle whanau can experience when trying to work with agencies when going through loss as a result of suicide. Sometimes even one insensitive interaction with an agency can re-fresh the pain. It is often a space where families feel they are navigating alone.

One part of the training that participants felt had a big impact was watching videos that captured the voices of young people discussing this issue and what they need. Lots of simple questions were answered about what a family can do to support young people. A need for family-only spaces was identified, as having organisations can be a bit intimidating for some whanau.

Here are some final words of inspiration from our facilitator below.