Providing Aftercare service to LGBTIQA+ people

In Australia, LGBTIQA+ people experience higher levels of distress and are more likely to attempt suicide than non-LGBTIQA+ people.¹ Aftercare is a service that provides support and care to those who have experienced a suicide attempt to prevent future suicidal behaviour during the critical period immediately following a suicide attempt.

Mind Australia is a Melbourne-based organisation providing evidence-based support to more than 11,000 people experiencing mental health concerns each year. One of the services Mind Australia delivers is an LGBTIQA+ specific Aftercare program that is designed and delivered to meet the needs of LGBTIQA+ people who have attempted suicide.

Mind Australia states that lived experience is key to delivering the LGBTIQA+ specific Aftercare program. Mind Australia’s LGBTIQA+ Aftercare program is staffed entirely by LGBTIQA+ community members who have their own lived and living experience of mental health issues and/or thoughts of suicide. The service offers recovery-focused, short-term (up to six months) community-based and therapeutic support for people from the LGBTIQA+ community who are having thoughts of suicide. Participants are matched with a peer practitioner and a counsellor or psychologist for weekly or fortnightly sessions. Aftercare suicide support is provided through a group-based program for people that need long-term assistance, and graduates of the program can access the weekly peer-led drop-in session for as long as they need.

Mind LGBTIQA+ Strategy and Service Development Manager Isabelle McGovern said having staff who are LGBTIQA+ and have lived experience has important benefits for people using the service. “It increases the participants’ sense of connection as part of the LGBTIQA+ community and gives them the security to be authentic, vulnerable and real,” she said.

Participants are achieving a demonstrable reduction in psychological distress due to the program. Mind Research and Evaluation Manager Dr Laura Hayes oversees the outcomes and says, “Kessler 10 outcome measures indicate a 1:3 reduction in psychological distress between entry and exit to the program. So the magnitude of change participants report is actually huge.”

Participants are achieving a demonstrable reduction in psychological distress due to the program. Mind Research and Evaluation Manager Dr Laura Hayes oversees the outcomes measuring “the magnitude of change participants report is actually huge,” she said. “Kessler 10 outcome measures indicate a 1:3 reduction in psychological distress between entry and exit to the program.”

The program received an additional $100k funding boost in March as part of a Victorian government support package for the transgender community after the recent well-publicised anti-trans rallies in Victoria and other states. This will enable the service to employ an additional practitioner to expand its capacity to support more people. Mind’s Senior Manager for Inclusion and Participation, Katie Larsen, said the need for the funding was reflected in the increase in referrals the service has received in the wake of the rallies. “Mind received a month’s referrals in two days following the rally at Parliament House,” she said.

“We had similar increases in service demand during the Religious Discrimination Bill and the Marriage Equality campaign. We know these polarised discussions about gender identity have a direct impact on the mental health and wellbeing of vulnerable people who are struggling with their identity. But sadly, they continue, with the attacks on drag story time events being the latest example.”

LGBTIQA+ Aftercare was originally developed as part of the National Suicide Prevention Trial in the North West Melbourne PHN. The program’s success has seen its funding extended by the Victorian government for another 12 months, and people across greater Melbourne can now access it.