A small subcommittee of the Youth Committee (Nedlands) commenced researching in the year 2000 for a suicide prevention project for youth in our community. This was following the suicides of three young men known by Nedlands members in a six month period.
We researched many projects, attended several Seminars and spoke to experts in the relevant fields. Most projects were rejected as too expensive or not relevant for our community context. We wanted something simple, a resource relevant to the issues of suicide and to appeal personally to young people.
We were attracted to the idea of giving the young people a card with the phone number of an appropriate Counselling Service. The service needed to be 24-hour and answered by suitably trained personnel who could not only deal with suicide related issues but also drugs, family conflict and any other difficulties encountered by young people. We decided on the Lifeline 24 hour service which is accessed for the cost of a local call anywhere in WA.
