Place-based Suicide Prevention Trials

The Victorian Government has committed to halving the rate of suicide deaths by 2025. The Victorian Suicide Prevention Framework 2016-25 (the Framework) outlines their approach for achieving this, including a set of actions targeted at suicide prevention.

The Place-Based Suicide Prevention Trials (PBSPTs) form a cornerstone of the Framework and aims to reduce suicide, improve individual resilience and wellbeing and create systems change that will help to prevent suicide in an ongoing way. The PBSPTs draw on evidence-based suicide prevention interventions that are tailored to local populations and circumstances. The PBSPT is based on the concept of collective impact, which involves local communities in bringing together the skills, expertise and resources needed to develop a systemic plan for preventing suicide. This approach encourages everyone involved in suicide prevention to collaborate and focus their efforts on the interventions likely to have the greatest impact within their community.

The Victorian Government is partnering with Primary Health Networks (PHNs) to trial the PBSPT in twelve communities across six PHN regions from 2017 to 2020:

Eastern Melbourne – Whittlesea and Maroondah

North-Western Melbourne – Brimbank/Melton and Macedon Ranges

South-Eastern Melbourne – Mornington Peninsula/Frankston and Dandenong

Gippsland – Latrobe Valley and Bass Coast

Murray – Mildura and Benalla

Western Victoria – Ballarat and Great South Coast.

In the period from 2018-2021, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) commissioned Southern Synergy and the Sax Institute to:

  • Develop an Evaluation Framework to form the foundation for the formative and summative evaluations
  • Evaluate the PBSPT’s Establishment, Formative and Summative phases, using a developmental evaluation approach
  • Develop evaluation capacity in the PBSPT sites, enabling them to continually review and adapt their implementation approaches across the life of the project.

For further information, see https://www2.health.vic.gov.au/mental-health/prevention-and-promotion/suicide-prevention-in-victoria

For an overview of the trial, see https://youtu.be/J9E8sWo-krk