APS Submission to the National Suicide Prevention Strategy Scoping Paper Consultation

The Australian Psychological Society (APS) welcomed the opportunity to contribute to the National Suicide Prevention Office’s (NSPO) initial public consultation on the development of the National Suicide Prevention Strategy.

This consultation was focused on the NSPO’s Scoping Paper, which proposed a structure (containing principles, focus areas and enablers) which would form the basis of the development of the Strategy.  

The APS submission focused on the following issues:

1. The development of the Strategy must be evidence-based. This includes learning from the extensive psychological research on suicide prevention and the lived experience of suicide and encouraging the development of practice-based evidence (see APS Position Statement on Evidence-based Practice and Practice-based Evidence in Psychology).
    
2. The Strategy should contain a psychological model of change.  The chances of a successful development and implementation of the Strategy can be maximised by drawing on the experience of psychologists in understanding and addressing cultural, social and behavioural change.
    
3. The role of psychologists in suicide prevention includes but extends well beyond the provision of psychological interventions in a mental health context.  Psychologists are uniquely placed to work with not only individual clinical needs and experiences of suicide but also the broader social, institutional and cultural factors shaping suicide and its prevention.

The APS looks forward to further opportunities to work with the NSPO in 2023 to shape the development of the Strategy in a way which recognises the full scope, value and contribution of psychologists in preventing suicide in the Australian community

View submission