Contribution to the evidence base

Roses in the Ocean is committed to contributing to the emerging and rapidly growing evidence base relating to the active and meaningful inclusion of lived experience people in all suicide prevention activities, from a policy and strategic level right through to grassroots community-level engagement.

All of our activities, including workshop content, are developed, designed and delivered by people with a lived experience of suicide. This is important and arguably ground-breaking work that is continuing to add to the growing evidence base needed in Australia.

To date, much of the evidence that exists is from scientific peer reviewed work. Over time, and as more people with a lived experience of suicide contribute to new findings in this sector (including those many lived experience leaders and researchers) across many organisations in Australia, the research and evidence will also undoubtedly continue to become much richer, and will provide academic rigour resulting in a broader footprint in support of lived experience involvement at all levels in suicide prevention.

The Australian Institute of Suicide Research and Prevention (AISRAP) in conjunction with the Black Dog Institute evaluated two of our central Lived Experience of suicide capacity building workshops – Our Voice in Action and Voices of In-Sight throughout the duration of the LifeSpan Suicide Prevention Trial.  The AISRAP Study report highlights decreased levels of distress of participants, increased levels of empowerment, suicide literacy and confidence to engage in lived experience activities within their communities.  This study led to another – Reasons for Living among-those-with lived experience entering the suicide prevention workforce.