Consultations and evaluations
Life in Mind is a knowledge exchange portal providing translated evidence, policy, data and resources in suicide prevention and host of the National communications charter (the Charter). Life in Mind advances suicide prevention in Australia by increasing awareness and understanding of best-practice in suicide prevention, encouraging application to practice, collaboration and sharing of evidence-based information.
The Life in Mind portal and the Charter in its current form were developed following consultation with the suicide prevention sector and Primary Health Networks, and continue to be evaluated to monitor impact.
Initial consultation to inform development
From June–August 2017, Everymind consulted with 98 participants from 75 suicide prevention-related organisations, plus 32 representatives from 20 Primary Health Networks (PHNs) in both face-to-face, and online consultations.
The consultations sought to gain information and understanding about:
- Suicide prevention needs and priorities of organisations
- Preferred content to be accessible via a portal
- Ways to support effective and safe knowledge exchange across sectors (locally, regionally and nationally)
- Existing suicide prevention policies/strategies/frameworks/action plans, research, programs (primary, secondary and postvention approaches), services and resources that are evidence-based and best practice standards for communicating about suicide
- The Charter, which already in existence but underutilised, including content review and ways to operationalise it.
The outcomes from the consultations informed the development of the Life in Mind portal and redevelopment of the Charter.
The summary report, which details the findings from this consultation process, can be accessed here: Life in Mind consultation summary.
Continued development and updates
Life in Mind continues to develop the portal to ensure it meets the needs of users and reflects and responds to current suicide prevention activity in Australia. A number of short evaluation surveys have been undertaken with users of Life in Mind since the portal was created to assess the effectiveness of Life in Mind, particularly in relation to meeting stakeholder content needs and priorities and the overall functionality of the portal. Outcomes from these evaluations are used to make continuous improvements to the online portal.
Life in Mind aims to ensure the Charter and resources to support signatories to action the Charter are up-to-date and fit-for-purpose. In 2021 and 2023, signatories were surveyed to gather feedback and have informed updates and development of additional resources.
Updates to the Life in Mind portal and the Charter are made in consultation with the Life in Mind Champions, who represent the diverse needs of the mental health and suicide prevention sectors, government, industry and priority populations.