[Community Forum] The Alternatives to Suicide Approach

[COMMUNITY FORUM ]

This Community Forum will provide an opportunity to learn more about the Alt2Su approach, why it is necessary and opportunities for being involved, as well as hear from people who have been facilitating groups for some time. Join the LELAN team online Wednesday the 1st of November, to hear directly about our work bringing Alternatives to Suicide (Alt2Su) Peer Groups to SA.

Background

Throughout 2022 and 2023 LELAN is bringing the Alternatives to Suicide approach to South Australia. Alternatives to Suicide was developed by the Wildflower Alliance (formerly the Western Mass Recovery Learning Community) in the US. Alternatives to Suicide peer-led community-based groups centre mutual connection and meaning making around suicide distress, thoughts and experiences. They offer non-clinical spaces where people can be honest about their experiences without fear of forced treatment, other forms of coercion, or risk assessment that shuts conversation down.

Whilst the focus of the project is to support the establishment and ongoing running of Alternatives to Suicide groups, another core component is using this model as evidence that community based lived experience-led initiatives work and can be scaled. Five ‘pilot’ groups targeting different population groups will be part of the formal evaluation and will be the first groups to form. Additional groups will emerge from this work and inform the conceptualisation and design of future lived experience-led alternatives.

The Alternatives to Suicide Groups Charter defines the principles and values of support groups using the Alternatives to Suicide approach: Responsibility to – and not for or over; Consent and choice; Responses to injustice; and Healing in communities. 

If you have more questions reach out to the LELAN team via tanya@lelan.org.au (Mon-Thurs) or alt2su@lelan.org.au .