Reconstructing Meaning After Suicide: An Approach to Frontline Postvention Informed by Research and Lived Experience
Tracks
Marquis Room - In Person Only
| Monday, March 2, 2026 |
| 2:15 PM - 2:45 PM |
| Marquis |
Overview
Dr Tara Lal AFSM, Lived experience researcher | Suicide, trauma and transformation | Former firefighter
Details
Three Key Learnings:
Understanding suicide is a unique traumatic stressor for emergency service workers that presents profound challenges to meaning making. Why postvention must be culturally contextualised and situated within the broader organisational context The Implications for future practice – Why reconstructing meaning after suicide is integral to our postvention response.
Understanding suicide is a unique traumatic stressor for emergency service workers that presents profound challenges to meaning making. Why postvention must be culturally contextualised and situated within the broader organisational context The Implications for future practice – Why reconstructing meaning after suicide is integral to our postvention response.
Speaker
Dr Tara Lal AFSM
Emergency Services Lived Experience and Strategic Engagement Lead
Black Dog Institute
Reconstructing Meaning After Suicide: An Approach to Frontline Postvention Informed by Research and Lived Experience
Presentation Overview
Background: Suicide presents a unique traumatic stressor for emergency service workers that profoundly challenges meaning-making processes across existential, spiritual, emotional, relational, and cognitive domains. Despite growing recognition of mental health needs in frontline services, current postvention approaches fail to address the distinctive impact suicide has on these trauma-exposed populations.
Objective: This presentation draws on doctoral research findings to examine how frontline workers struggle to make meaning from suicide exposure identifying implications for comprehensive postvention practices that also serve as prevention.
Key Findings: The cultural and organisational context in which suicide occurs fundamentally determines its impact on individuals and organisations. Frontline workers experience suicide as a challenge to their core identity, worldview, and sense of control, requiring specialised support that moves beyond traditional psychosocial models toward a holistic bio-psycho-socio-spiritual approach. The temporal nature of meaning-making reveals that support cannot be time-bound but must be integrated within broader wellbeing strategies.
Implications for Practice: Effective postvention requires cultural specificity and organisational contextualisation rather than generic emergency service approaches. Co-creation with frontline workers who have lived experience is essential for developing authentic, impactful interventions. A whole-of-organisation response addressing the 5 core pillars of communal psychosocial health; safety, connection, justice, identity, and existential meaning may provide a foundation for the development of post-traumatic growth rather than prolonged distress.
Recommendations: Implementation of staged postvention protocols with clearly defined critical periods, trauma-informed approaches, and medium-term programs focusing on meaning-making processes. Organisational suicide prevention strategies should include preparedness training as well as comprehensive postvention support.
Conclusion: Only through rigorous co-creation practices embedding lived experience voices into all aspects of suicide preparedness, prevention, and postvention can we create truly suicide-safer emergency service organisations and communities.
Objective: This presentation draws on doctoral research findings to examine how frontline workers struggle to make meaning from suicide exposure identifying implications for comprehensive postvention practices that also serve as prevention.
Key Findings: The cultural and organisational context in which suicide occurs fundamentally determines its impact on individuals and organisations. Frontline workers experience suicide as a challenge to their core identity, worldview, and sense of control, requiring specialised support that moves beyond traditional psychosocial models toward a holistic bio-psycho-socio-spiritual approach. The temporal nature of meaning-making reveals that support cannot be time-bound but must be integrated within broader wellbeing strategies.
Implications for Practice: Effective postvention requires cultural specificity and organisational contextualisation rather than generic emergency service approaches. Co-creation with frontline workers who have lived experience is essential for developing authentic, impactful interventions. A whole-of-organisation response addressing the 5 core pillars of communal psychosocial health; safety, connection, justice, identity, and existential meaning may provide a foundation for the development of post-traumatic growth rather than prolonged distress.
Recommendations: Implementation of staged postvention protocols with clearly defined critical periods, trauma-informed approaches, and medium-term programs focusing on meaning-making processes. Organisational suicide prevention strategies should include preparedness training as well as comprehensive postvention support.
Conclusion: Only through rigorous co-creation practices embedding lived experience voices into all aspects of suicide preparedness, prevention, and postvention can we create truly suicide-safer emergency service organisations and communities.
Biography
Tara is an applied researcher, former firefighter, and internationally published author. She is deeply passionate about the need to embed the voice of lived experience into translational research to tackle the complex challenges of mental health, trauma, and suicide prevention. Her unique perspective as a frontline firefighter, who has journeyed through her own experiences of trauma, combined with a diverse academic and professional background, fuels her advocacy for meaningful change in the emergency services mental health and wellbeing sector. She is a born collaborator focussing on solutions that drive impactful change at individual, organisational, and community levels. Tara also holds an adjunct senior lecturer position at the University of New England and has been recognised with multiple awards for her contributions. As conference co-chair, she brings warmth, authenticity, a touch of humour and a strong commitment to fostering a supportive and inclusive environment for everyone.
