Sharing personal experiences of suicide publicly is incredibly powerful and central to suicide prevention work. However, working with media and public communication professionals can be intimidating and challenging and this can be a barrier to people sharing their stories. Many people with a lived and living experience of suicide feel like they don’t have the skills and information to navigate interactions with media and public communication professionals and have understandable concerns about the storytelling process in a public domain when there are many ‘unknowns’.
This workshop will provide a collective overview of current research and guidance for people sharing lived and living experiences publicly, including an overview of the media and public communication landscape in Australia. The workshop will then split into two key streams to complete breakout group activities. The first stream will be dedicated to people who want to share their experience of suicide publicly. This stream will focus on how to work with media, how to navigate difficult questions and a focus on maintaining wellbeing when storytelling in the public domain. The second stream aims to improve the knowledge and practice of people who are responsible for supporting people when they are sharing their personal stories of suicide. This may include communication professionals within organisations and those in service provision or community engagement roles.