Background:
The Station Community Mental Health Centre Inc. is a community based, not for profit organisation, designed to help residents of the Yorke Peninsula area of South Australia, recovering from or caring for someone with a mental illness. The local council provides the premises at nominal rent. The Station currently has a core group of 20 active volunteers and 72 members.

January 2018 saw a spike in disclosed Suicidal Ideation amongst membership to nearly 20%.

Existing Responses to Suicide Rural and Remote:
Even with additional resources of hiring a peer support counsellor and attending Black Dog Institute Advanced Suicide Prevention training workshop, responses are limited to “here is a leaflet with phone numbers and online resources” to calling the emergency service “ambulance and police”. To further, complicate matters for those who are willing to agree to an inpatient clinical approach, such does not exist in the regional and remote hospitals and so the person must be further traumatised and sent to an urban psychiatric centre such as Glenside S.A.. Simultaneously removing that person from all sources of family and community support.

Alternative Responses:
The Station Alternatives to Suicide Support Groups: Centers on mentors/facilitators with a lived experience of Suicidal Ideation and a willingness to disclose this in a peer group environment. A strong emphasis on a non-clinical community based intervention. Core Group Values including suicidal thoughts are not a mental illness. This paper is a case study of shared learning experience undertaken by the first group of mentors and co-authored by all members of this group. This paper will present The Station Alt2Sui Support Group Model. The roadmap to building a support group. The Manual developed by the group. Evidence of the acceptance and implementation of the Alt2Sui Support Group Model and Manual by an indigenous community and prison community.

Key Learnings:
1. Myths around suicide
2. Warning signs
3. Group support

See Richard O'Flaherty