Earlier this year, the Illawarra Mercury brought you the Care to QPR: Question, Persuade, Refer campaign.
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The campaign was in conjunction with the Illawarra Shoalhaven Suicide Prevention Collaborative.
The campaign told the deeply personal and sometimes confronting stories of people from various professional fields and walks of life and their first-hand experiences with suicide.
Those stories truly reinforced that no matter how low things get, there is always hope. Always.
Aside from the stories, the campaign helped promote and give people access to the latest online training module, called QPR. The training provides the necessary tools to help people when they need it most. We called on our community to be beacons of hope and light in the fight against suicide.
In support of the campaign, through Member for Keira Ryan Park and Health Minister Brad Hazzard, the NSW Government stumped up $10,000 to allow us to give 1000 free training modules to people in the community.
Not only did over 1000 people in our community take up that opportunity but many businesses stepped forward to support that campaign and put their own staff through the training program.
On Friday of last week, the Federal Government came to the party. Member for Gilmore Ann Sudmalis announced last week another 1000 free licenses would be made available.
Member for Whitlam Stephen Jones deserves high praise for his role in securing that funding through the Health Minister Greg Hunt.
Ultimately that means there is a new batch of free online modules available to people in our community
Please get online and become a beacon for your community.
Go to www.suicidepreventioncollaborative.org.au/QPR and sign up for free QPR training or contact the Collaborative directly on 1300 069 002 to enquire about QPR for your organisation. If you or someone you know needs support please call Lifeline 24/7 on 13 11 14.