With males accounting for the majority of those who die by suicide, Lifeline believe it's important to have more men volunteering on the phones.
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One of those is Ruslan Epoff, who has been taking calls with Lifeline for 18 months.
"We know that two-thirds of the 3100-plus people who took their lives in 2017 were males," Mr Epoff said.
"So I think it stands to reason that males might be more comfortable with a male crisis supporter talking to them on the other end of the phone."
Mr Epoff said the calls can take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes depending on what the caller is going through - and sometimes it can be tough on the volunteers.
"It really does get difficult sometimes but I believe we have an amazing support staff network," he said.
"Lifeline are really big on self-care. If you’ve had a tough shift your in-shift support supervisor will be able to tell and you’ll have a really long debrief before you leave, so I don't really take anything home with me."
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Lifeline South Coast is looking for more volunteers - male and female - to devote some time to helping others.
South Coast CEO Rachel Norris said volunteers get around a year of training - which is a mixture of an eight-week course at the beginning followed by on-the-job supervision and mentoring.
The funding for the training is provided by BlueScope.
"People who call us come from all walks of life, all ages," Ms Norris said.
"So we want to have people that reflect the diversity within our community. What we know, sadly is the rate of suicide for men is two-thirds greater than for women, so to have more males on the phones would be great."
She said it can be important for men to seek out support - even if it's not picking up the phone.
"Men aren’t necessarily good at picking up the phone and we want to encourage more men to feel that they can call," she said.
"What we’re also encouraging men to do is if they are going through some really difficult times in their lives to at least talk to a mate, talk to somebody who can really be there to support them."
BlueScope's Chief Excutive Australian Steel Products John Nowlan was pleased to be supporting the work of Lifeline for a number of years.
"The Lifeline training course develops valuable skills in local people to build a stronger and more supportive community,” Mr Nowlan said.
For crisis support call Lifeline on 13 11 14.