WHILE Mount Isa's Queensland Health team will not be strongly represented at the National Suicide Prevention Conference, which is on in Melbourne this week, the city's mental health agencies said there was plenty being done for the cause locally.
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North West Hospital and Health Service acting executive director of mental health Sandra Kennedy said the service had a new suicide prevention plan following the start of a new financial year and funding to complete programs with the mining industry.
"Early identification is the key to suicide prevention and wile service and agencies responsible for mental health or social and emotional wellbeing work tirelessly, it is often at crisis point that people present," she said.
"If community awareness and knowledge of how to respond is continuous and embedded, the idea is that we will impact on suicide rates and suicidal behavious."
She said an example of the idea was the SafeTALK training initiative, funded by Glencore Xstrata, which will allow people from the community to be trained in suicide awareness and spread the word through the city.
"While no-one from our organisation is attending the suicide prevention conference this week, there is a plan to attend the World Suicide Prevention Conference in September with the potential to present an update in suicide prevention practices and initiatives in the North West," Ms Kennedy said.
"Together (with the Australian Institute of Suicide Prevention) we are looking at research that will hopefully result in a best practice guideline for suicide prevention in general rather than suicide prevention initiatives that occur in response to clusters of suicides or suddent spikes in suicides."
