My name's Nicholas Proctor. I work for Adelaide University. I'm a professor of nursing at Adelaide University, and for about 30 years been deeply interested in suicide prevention at population levels, but also in clinical work. And I lead a program of work around safety planning, trauma-informed practice in suicide prevention, and supervise students as well. My perspective on the suicide prevention strategy is that it takes the population-based understandings of suicide and suicide-related distress and brings us closer to things that we can do at the point of contact, point of care, or at system-level performance. So it takes things in the wider world we know about for people who are disproportionately impacted by suicide, but gives us guidance to be able to take that forward so that the lives of people who are experiencing suicidal distress, their families, their carers, but also people working in services, have something to work with. And at the core of the things that they do and will be doing, I believe, is bringing compassion and person-centered approaches. When we come together, it reduces ambiguity. It makes pathways for a solution a lot easier.
It creates trust. I believe we're more alike than unalike if we really put our minds to it. We're more alike than unalike in what we want to see happen in suicide prevention. Sometimes what I notice about strategy is it can be this big government document with tables and language that perhaps the people reading it are not familiar with, don't see that language in that format every day. But this strategy at its core is built for people in local and regional communities as well as larger communities. And the reason I say that is that throughout the strategy, there are possibilities for compassion, actionable ideas, person-centered approaches that have reach, relevance, and meaning for the people on the ground. So reach into the strategy. Find your way into it. Don't be intimidated by the strategy. Local communities know the heart of what's going on.
They can tell us things that outsiders perhaps will take time to discover or may not even discover at all. Within communities, there are informal relationships, informal partnerships, and knowledges that can be, if you like, levers to be able to create change or maintain support or create innovation at the local level. So when local communities have that and are recognized for that, it sends a message of validation to local communities. What you know and what you do, and how you can apply what you know and what you do at the local level is valued byus. So please go forward and make that a reality for you.