At a recent Committee meeting, Ride4Life committed the sum of $500 towards sponsoring of the Loddon Healthy Minds Network Suicide Prevention Forum.

This forum was first held in 2018 in order to focus on suicide in rural and regional Australia. Issues can be different in the bush, and yet so many things are the same across our great land. A forum was planned that would bring people from rural and regional Australia together to discuss the strategies that they had in place for raising awareness of Mental Health issues and preventing suicide.

 

Many of these ideas and strategies of course can be transplanted from one area in Australia to another.  If there is a great program working in the Kimberley with beef farmers, then there is every reason it might work with beef farmers in Wangaratta or the Victorian High Country.  Issues faced across rural Australia of drought and floods are consistent. It just seems they often vary with their timing.  There is every chance we can learn from each other and implement programs that have worked in other areas instead of reinventing the wheel.

This year's Forum has to be held online because of Covid 19.  Whilst this can take away from the personal contact and sharing stories over a cuppa, at the same time it adds a whole new dimension to the event.

First of all, it is completely FREE to register and the Forum will be held on Zoom.  This will allow people from all over Australia, indeed the world, to participate in this great event.  And what a great line up of speakers too.

Starting off our day, key note speaker, Ben Brooksby, will take us on his journey that culminated in the establishment of the ‘Naked Farmer’; followed by a range of guest presenters that will appeal to practitioners and community members alike, providing strategies that you will be able to put to immediate use in your service and/or community.

https://www.thenakedfarmerco.com.au/about-us

Check out the range of presenters:

Ride4Life will be sponsoring the presentation by Alison Kennedy from the Ripple Effect. The Ripple Effect has done some fantastic work in the area of suicide awareness and prevention and it is our privilige to be supporting such a worthy cause.  As always it is in keeping with Ride4Life's mandate that all support must go to Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Causes.  We trust Alison's presentation will inspire others to adopt the research across the country and get involved.

Ride4Life have put a little video together to promote our involvement which you can see below.

Please share with your networks and get as many people along to this event as we can. It could save many lives and provide a lot of information. It just might give you an idea of a program you can implement in your town.

Here is the promo for the Forum.

Follow this link to the Loddon Healthy Minds Suicide Prevention Forum to find out more and register for the event.

The complete program, including speaker profiles, can be downloaded from the link below in PDF Format.

Suicide Prevention Forum 2020 Program

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