Touchpoints

Available as a:

  • standalone workshop – delivered by Roses in the Ocean facilitators, or
  • TouchPoints Licence – this is an opportunity to embed within a community a number of local community members with lived experience of suicide who are trained through our Train the Trainer program to deliver Touchpoints regularly throughout a year. This builds both capacity and sustainability into community in a cost effective way resulting in more community members developing skills and confidence to recognise and respond to people experiencing emotional distress and/or at risk of suicide.

All Roses in the Ocean capacity-building workshops are lived experience informed, designed and delivered by professional facilitators who also have a personal lived experience of suicide.

This four-hour workshop is designed specifically to give community members an insight into suicide through the lens of lived experience and equip them with the right knowledge and practical tools to reduce others’ emotional pain. It is predicated on the idea that community members are often ‘TouchPoints’ for people to seek and receive help, and therefore that by developing people’s capacity to support others, we can save lives.

Commonly referred to as ‘gatekeeper’ training (we prefer the term ‘lifekeeper’ training!), this training interweaves evidence-based content with the expertise of people who have lived experience of suicide. With the view of developing your skills and confidence around suicide, we share what can be helpful, what may not work, and most importantly, how best to support people at risk or bereaved through suicide.

On completion of this program, you can expect to have:

  • Attained a deeper understanding and appreciation of the complexity of suicide
  • Increased awareness of warning signs and invitations to help
  • Increased confidence and capacity to engage with people in crises
  • Improved confidence to connect a person at risk of suicide with support
  • An appreciation of importance of self-care and practical tools to implement a self-care plan
  • Dispelled common differing beliefs about suicide through lived experience perspectives and facts.
  • Practice ways to support someone bereaved through suicide
  • Knowledge on how best to support someone to return to the workplace

Who is the program for?

Community members, regular community TouchPoints (e.g. hairdressers, sports coaches, baristas, newsagents, pharmacy staff, taxi drivers etc.) and various workplace staff (e.g. general staff, Human Resources and management etc.).

Download workshop pdf

Workshop enquiry

View workshops schedule


Evaluation of TouchPoints workshop (AISRAP)

Prepared by the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention (AISRAP), WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Suicide Prevention School of Applied Psychology.

Read evaluation


TouchPoints has received Accreditation to the Suicide Prevention Australia Standards – Quality Innovation Performance Program.

This accreditation is designed to assure the safety, quality and efficacy of Australia’s suicide prevention programs and includes a formal independent assessment against the Suicide Prevention Australia Standards for Quality Improvement.