Oral Presentation (max 20 mins) National Suicide Prevention Conference 2025

Developing and evaluating a cultural connection suicide prevention program for First Nations young people (#36)

Charles Rolls 1 , Lerissa Rolls 1 , Mandy Gibson 2 , Ronald Conlon 1
  1. Youth2Knowledge Indigenous youth mental health, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia
  2. Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention, Griffith University, Mount Gravatt, QLD, Australia

Background: 

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people experience higher suicide mortality than non-Indigenous youth in Australia1, yet there is limited evidence of effective preventative strategies2. Many are misaligned to the needs of First Nations young people due to a lack of consideration of protective factors such as community and cultural connection3. 

Program: 

To address these challenges, Project Yarn Circle was developed and piloted by Youth2Knowledge, an Indigenous owned and managed youth mental health organisation to reduce suicide through increasing student’s connection to culture, community, and services. Project Yarn Circle was piloted at 11 schools in Southeast Queensland to 300+ young people, the 6-week sessions included connecting with Elders and local knowledge holders to share and learn cultural practices (stories, painting, dance, Indigenous languages). 

This session will outline the development, implementation, and evaluation of this pilot initiative. 

Evaluation: 

A pre- and post- program evaluation questionnaire was co-designed with program facilitators, Elders, community members involved with young people in the local community to ensure that questions regarding suicidal thoughts were culturally-safe, age-appropriate and consistent with local community interpretations. As community partners identified that examining only thoughts about wanting to die (suicidal ideation) without wanting to live (reasons for living) was inconsistent with Indigenous holistic conceptualisations of health, both the General Health Questionnaire 28-Suicide Scale (GHQ-28 SS)4 and the Positive Ideation subscale of the Positive and Negative Suicide Ideation Inventory (PANSI-PI)5 were included. Items to measure the most locally-salient components of connection to culture were co-designed for this evaluation study. The evaluation also included the Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (RSES)6 and help-seeking items developed for this study.  

Results: 

Pre- and post-program evaluation questionnaires found that students had significantly lower suicidal ideation after participating in the program. Participants demonstrated greater self-esteem, and higher positive ideation/reasons for living. Students also reported greater sense of cultural connection and confidence to access support from services if experiencing suicidal crises. Confidence to access services is a critical outcome towards reducing suicide disparities as First Nations young people who die by suicide are less likely to have previously accessed health services7.  

Conclusion: 

The results suggest that the program was effective at promoting help-seeking, cultural connection, self-esteem and positive ideation, and suggest cultural connectedness to be valuable in supporting young peoples’ positive reasons for living and connection to their futures.  Further learning from the community co-design process and future programmatic and research directions will also be discussed. 

  1. 1. Gibson, M., Stuart, J., Leske, S., Ward, R., & Tanton, R. (2021). Suicide rates for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: the influence of community level cultural connectedness. Medical Journal of Australia, 214(11), 514–518. https://doi.org/10.5694/mja2.51084
  2. 2. Leske, S., Paul, E., Gibson, M., Little, B., Wenitong, M., & Kolves, K. (2020). Global systematic review of the effects of suicide prevention interventions in Indigenous peoples. In Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (Vol. 74, Issue 12). https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2019-212368
  3. 3. Dudgeon, P., Calma, T., & Holland, C. (2017). The context and causes of the suicide of Indigenous people in Australia. Journal of Indigenous Wellbeing, 2(2).
  4. 4. Goldney, R. D., Wilson, D., Grande, E. D., Fisher, L. J., & McFarlane, A. C. (2000). Suicidal ideation in a random community sample: attributable risk due to depression and psychosocial and traumatic events. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 34(1), 98–106. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1440-1614.2000.00646.x
  5. 5. Osman, A., Gutierrez, P. M., Jiandani, J., Kopper, B. A., Barrios, F. X., Linden, S. C., & Truelove, R. S. (2003). A preliminary validation of the Positive and Negative Suicide Ideation (PANSI) inventory with normal adolescent samples. Journal of Clinical Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.10154
  6. 6. Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the Adolescent Self-Image. Princeton University Press.
  7. 7. Gibson, M., Leske, S., Ward, R., Weir, B., Russell, K., & Kolves, K. (2024). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth suicide mortality and previous mental health, suicidality and service use in Queensland, Australia, from 2001 to 2021. Journal of Affective Disorders, 354, 55–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JAD.2024.03.013