Symposia, panel, round table style (max 55 mins) National Suicide Prevention Conference 2025

The symposia will showcase a series of presentations centred around the design, implementation, and evaluation of a newly established framework designed for organisations and government entities aiming to establish, embed, and sustain a culture informed by lived experience of suicide (the framework). This framework, developed and implemented by people with lived experience of suicide, provides an innovative approach to integrating these crucial insights into suicide prevention efforts.

The symposia will build on the Lived Experience of Suicide Informed and Inclusive Culture Change suite of resources released in 2022.

The conference theme Together Towards Tomorrow emphasises the importance of addressing challenges and advancing solutions in suicide prevention. The symposia reflect this, underscoring the need for people with lived experience of suicide to play a central role in designing, executing, governing, and evaluating suicide prevention activities, as recommended by the Advice on National Suicide Prevention Strategy.

The insights of people with a lived experience of suicide, as well as research highlights that significant cultural and operational changes are necessary to fully integrate lived experience of suicide into organisational and governance frameworks. The framework explored in the symposia presentations will support cultural and operational changes, ensuring that the expertise of those with lived experience of suicide are effectively harnessed to innovate and achieve impactful outcomes in suicide prevention.

Symposia presenters:

1. Overview of Lived Experience of Suicide-Informed and Inclusive Culture Change This presentation will provide a comprehensive overview of the need for culture change, detailing the framework’s application across suicide prevention organisations and government entities.
2. Lived Experience Organisational Maturity Assessment Tool This presentation will introduce a self-assessment tool designed to measure the extent of meaningful integration of lived experience perspectives.
3. Lived Experience of Suicide Organisational Maturity Assessment Tool Pilot This presentation will discuss the results from the implementation of the maturity Model Assessment Tool and examine the experiences of organisations implementing the framework.
4. Lived Experience of Suicide-Centred Governance Guide This presentation will focus on the development of a guide to help suicide prevention organisations integrate lived experience expertise into governance structures.
5. Lived Experience of Suicide-Informed and Inclusive Outcome Measures This presentation will outline qualitative outcome measures, co-produced with lived experience of suicide, to demonstrate the impact of lived experience inclusion in suicide prevention efforts.

This symposia will be of particular interest to organisations and government departments seeking to advance their suicide prevention strategies by integrating lived experience expertise.