The success of SWSPHN’s region-wide service co-design approach to men’s suicide prevention has caught the attention of the Australian Men’s Health Forum.
SWSPHN was one of only four PHNs asked to discuss our ongoing approaches to men’s mental health to the Men’s Health Connected forum, an online summit throughout June.
Our Mental Health Manager Chris Jones was invited to present to the session: How PHNs are working to prevent male suicide and How PHNs are engaging with men. His presentation attracted more than 120 attendees from across Australia.
Chris focused on the key learnings and perspectives from co-design sessions held at Campbelltown and Mittagong in early February which gave local people an opportunity to contribute to the development of local services.
Chris said our co-design sessions not only attracted one of our largest co-design participation rates to date, with more than 80 people attending, but also encouraged new men’s voices and provided a unique platform for the lived experience of male suicide to be featured and supported.
“This co-design approach has since helped to enable SWSPHN to develop an innovative grants approach through which we’ll provide funding to organisations to foster ideas for helping men become more proactive in seeking and securing support to improve their mental health and reduce rates of male suicide,” he said.