Caroline Aebersold Suicide Prevention Australia Interview

Caroline Aebersold Suicide Prevention Australia Interview

Suicide Prevention Australia has responded to the most recent ABS report on suicide deaths in Australia with the observation that this report highlights questions in relation to suicide reporting.

The additional data released in relation to demographic factors such as geographic breakdown and country of birth are a positive step towards providing further indicators to assist in ensuring suicide prevention strategies can be well targeted. There is considerable work still to be done, however, in ensuring we have quality data in Australia, which is why Suicide Prevention Australia continues its leadership role with key stakeholders such as the ABS on the National Committee for the Standardised Reporting of Suicide (NCSRS). The work of the NCSRS aims to improve the availability of detailed analysis and timely information so that we can respond more proactively when it comes to a challenge that touches nearly every Australian household.

The ABS commentary on the recently released report states that a 17% reduction in the suicide rate in Australia has occurred between 2001 and 2010. While of course we welcome any reduction in the suicide rate in Australia we still caution that we need to look further at the unfolding trends, as there has been wide recognition that only the data on suicide deaths in Australia after 2007 are sufficiently reliable to support future trend analysis. This new ABS data release gives us the opportunity to further improve the analysis techniques involved and allow us to focus our efforts and energies in those areas that need our urgent and longer term attention.

The reduction claim is drawn from age standardised data and does not necessarily reflect the data for specific age cohorts: suicide deaths in Australia are not evenly spread across the population. Importantly, suicide rates across older males and for women throughout the age cohorts do not appear to have decreased during this reporting period; a point which is equally as relevant in any assessment of the effectiveness of suicide prevention strategies in Australia.

'Suicide rate' as a measure of national impact in suicide prevention is limited as a measure for a public health issue that in its occurrence across the population is relatively infrequent. A more useful statistic to use in trend analysis on suicide deaths is the actual number of deaths in Australia - which sadly remains at around 2,200 since 2007.

NOTE: This number of deaths is higher than the national road toll - which interestingly is not generally reported as a 'rate per 100,000'.

Some points made by the ABS are facts well understood and worth repeating: 75% of all suicide deaths are male - a statistic which only further drives the need for outreach to those males who are vulnerable and who obviously have the ability and capability to contribute further to Australia such as indigenous males, males in rural and remote areas, males in their mid-years as well as those in younger years, and males with related substance abuse and mental illness issues.

Importantly, by analysing this current release we can already see areas that require more effort and focus with the deaths of women by suicide remaining largely unchanged over the decade - warranting further understanding and effort on suicide prevention for this group.

For those working in suicide prevention, the message remains the same: too many tragic, preventable deaths are occurring. Much is already being done but much more can and must be done - both for the whole population and those groups and individuals at higher risk. Suicide Prevention Australia continues to work with our sector partners, stakeholders and members, and Governments right across the country at every layer, in finding ways of preventing suicide and understanding more deeply how we, as a community, can drive change in the formulation of more targeted mental and public health policies.

Interview with Caroline Aebersold

Caroline is a well-respected leader in the not-for-profit sector having worked in senior roles for over a decade. She has particular expertise in governance and organisational development, working with vulnerable and marginalised communities and suicide prevention. Having studied sociology and psychology, then qualifying as a Psychologist, Caroline worked in a range of areas including direct counselling work, teaching counselling skills and specialist skills to mental health professionals, managing community health services, and working as a management consultant to corporate and government clients on a number of large projects. She has also served on a number of not-for-profit boards.

Caroline is now the CEO of The Song Room, who provide programs to a range of disadvantaged and special-needs communities. Under her leadership, the organisation has had 10-fold growth in 3 years and is now delivering programs nationally, having developed their strategic plan and a diverse funding base as well as specialised programs, an excellent staff team and organisational structure.

Caroline is recognised for her expertise in strategic policy and program development and in working collaboratively towards community outcomes with various Government Departments and Community Organisations. Caroline has an active interest in Psychology and Law. She is currently completing a Masters in Law (Human Rights) at Monash University and has worked on a range of projects in this field through her career, such as work nationally with the Family Court of Australia and the Coroners Courts.

Question: What work do you do for Suicide Prevention Australia?

Caroline Aebersold: I am a volunteering board member for Suicide Prevention Australia and I have been involved with Suicide Prevention Australia for many, many years. I support the organisation every way I can, but my key interest area that I have been helping with is looking at how we can improve reporting on suicide in terms of data and how it's used in the most effective way.


Question: What does the Suicide Prevention Australia do?

Caroline Aebersold: Suicide Prevention Australia is a peak body organisation, we don't do service provision directly; we serve the sector of service providers, researches and all the people who work in the area of suicide prevention. There a whole lot of things that we aim to do in terms of improving collaboration across the sector including sharing information and looking at policies and physician papers that help to share practice and information across the sector.

Essentially Suicide Prevention Australia is there to make sure all the various people across the country working in the area get the best possible outcome for the community and do that in a well-coordinated way.


Question: Why did you choose to become involved with Suicide Prevention Australia?

Caroline Aebersold: I started out my career working as a psychologist and early on I was working with more vulnerable people and as I specialised in the area of suicide prevention I was working with a lot of clients who were at risk of suicide. I then started to get involved in teaching and from there began strategic work looking at the sector as a whole and what is needed to improve things more broadly which included working with government and community organisations.

Quite some years ago now, I offered and nominated for a board role with Suicide Prevention Australia to help them do their work because I think it is very important.


Question: Can you talk about the female statistics? Do the stats differ from female to male?

Caroline Aebersold: There has been a recent revised report released by the ABS on updated statistics. One of the things that we are working on at Suicide Prevention Australia is ensuring that the statistics that are released are really accurate because they are the basis on which we target our suicide prevention strategies and funding.

One of the things that is very interesting surrounding the statistics released between men and women is women do tend to attempt suicide far more frequently than men. But men are far more likely to end their life by suicide and there are a whole lot of reasons for that. Often there are a lot of strategies that are specifically focused on the reasons as to why men are more likely to end their life by suicide. We need to be very mindful of the fact that many young women are very vulnerable and are at risk and are making attempts at suicide.

One of the very important things to reinforce is the reason we believe that we might see more women who attempt suicide but less who actually complete suicide; which is that women generally are more willing to seek help and support whether that be personal or professional. We know that seeking help and support is the absolute key factors for helping people get through a really difficult time. We see the data and we can certainly understand what is going on for young women and why it is so important to seek help and get support.


Question: Are there a specific age group of people who are at greater risk of taking their lives?

Caroline Aebersold: We certainty do see different trends over the years of different age groups, different regions and different demographic backgrounds - people who are more or less at risk. There are some things that we can understand from data as to what underpins why people are more at risk and we're always trying to understand what that means and what we can do about that.

When we look at all the different risk factors, demographics, geographical location, circumstances and background one of the really common things that we see through all of those is around a sense of disconnection or marginalisation which really relates to the flipside of why it's so important to seek help and support. We look into whether this is because people are feeling isolated and marginalised because they may be struggling with mental illness or whether it is because they come from a background that makes them feel disconnected; for example young people who are struggling with issues of sexuality often end up feeling very marginalised and isolated which is a risk factor. Also, people in rural and regional areas are risk factors as it may be more challenging to seek help or they may be feeling isolated. One of the themes we see is a sense of isolation or disconnection.


Question: What should we look out for as symptoms of suicidal behaviour?

Caroline Aebersold: There are a lot of things that people do pick up on around people feeling like they have a sense of disconnection and they may indicate in a roundabout way that they're feeling as though life isn't worth living. Often people do talk around it or show a whole lot of signs of being vulnerable. More often than not people won't actually say specifically "I'm thinking about ending my life".

One of the really important messages is that if there is any indication that you're getting that someone is having a really hard time, feeling vulnerable or they're talking around the issue of feeling like life isn't worth going on with or that they're very struggling with things; then it's very important that you talk about it and reach out and support them. Often people do feel reluctant to ask because they're not sure what to say or how they could help; there is absolutely no harm done in asking someone if they're struggling and then being there to see how you can help support them.


Question: What can Australians do to help support Suicide Prevention Australia?

Caroline Aebersold: Suicide Prevention Australia is a fairly small organisation and we do really good work to help the sector as a whole but we are a not-for-profit so if people wanted to get involved by volunteering or donating to support the work then I'd suggest they go to the website: http://suicidepreventionaust.org.

There are a range of things that we have volunteers involved in helping with including various events, office work and spokespeople. It'd be great if people wanted to lend a hand.


Interview by Brooke Hunter