Postvention is said to be one of the forms to prevent suicide as persons who were bereaved to suicide are up to eight times more likely to take their life than the general population (CBPATSISP, 2023). Active Response Bereavement Outreach (ARBOR) is the suicide postvention program operating in the Perth metropolitan area since 2008 by Anglicare WA and is currently funded by WA Primary Health Alliance (Anglicare WA, 2023). Its model was initially proposed by a researcher at Curtin University, and the program has been operating for 15 years. The team is suggested to be a blend of peer support volunteers with lived experience and professional counsellors as being the optimum way of working. Peer support volunteers play a critical role in providing emotional support to clients by sharing their lived experience stories through individual, couple, and group sessions. This helps clients to normalise their grief and loss experience, to reduce the sense of isolation, and to find hope to live.
Effective collaboration between volunteers and counsellors is the key to maximise the therapeutic work we provide to clients, and ARBOR is making an ongoing effort to build a stronger relationship between volunteers and counsellors. One of them was to hold a team building workshop held in the collaboration with Roses in the Ocean where both volunteers and counsellors shared their lived experience stories with their guidance. This process posed some challenges, especially to counsellors who concern of being stigmatised and judgements regarding professional competency by the disclosure of own lived experience (Harris et al., 2016). However, this opportunity allowed volunteers and counsellors to share their vulnerable aspects of self, facilitated meaningful connections between them, and establish stronger alliances. This process also allowed counsellors to be aware of volunteers’ lived experiences so that they could match their clients with more suitable volunteers based on the identicalness of their stories. The presentation includes qualitative data collected from volunteers and counsellors who participated in this workshop.
In addition, the CaLD worker’s insights related to this program will be presented. By placing strategies, ARBOR workers and volunteers effectively facilitate the therapeutic groups so that clients feel emotionally safe to share their suicide bereavement stories and to create connections, regardless of their cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Aligning with this years’ conference theme Together Towards Tomorrow, the inclusive practice will be proposed by the CaLD female who has been involved in ARBOR for four years.