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The real benefits of having the national suicide prevention outcomes framework is that it's partnering with the national
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strategy where the national strategy is really capturing where we think we need to go or where we want to go. The
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outcomes framework is then that tool that helps us monitor if we're getting there.
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The strategy can't really exist without the outcomes framework. So we're talking about all these things that we want to do. Um but if we don't measure, how do
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we know if we've actually done them? Um so measuring them against the outcomes framework is really positive and it
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doesn't just help um people at a higher level understand what's happening. It's actually really great on the ground.
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An outcomes framework particularly in the context of our national suicide prevention strategy really means that we can hold systems um to account. One of
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the things that became really clear when we were working together on the development of the national suicide prevention strategy is we we set these
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really ambitious targets for where the sector needs to move or the work that needs to be done and not necessarily
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even just within kind of suicide prevention specifically but across all kinds of um industries, government departments. And one of the things that
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we came back to quite a lot was the difficulty with actually understanding what's working well.
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It both creates and gives understanding to what the strategy wants to do and intends to do. So it's the why for me.
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Suicide is such a personal experience that is very much shaped by structural and societal factors, things that we can
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collectively do something about. um in having suicide only talked about as these you know in
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the end what's happened in terms of rates and things like that it doesn't give any voice to that personal
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experience. So behind each um statistic, there's a person, there's a family, and there's a community. And we want to um
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when when we're looking at qualitative and quantitative data, the data might might only represent
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um that one loss to suicide, it doesn't represent the number of people that have been affected by that loss or the level
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of distress that those people experience.
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So often our ways of measuring things in suicide prevention has been very deficits based. So it's, you know, it's
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really about what goes wrong. And you know what? It's really hard to move from an space where you're just sitting in
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thinking about everything that's going wrong. I mean, that's true about living with suicidal distress yourself. you
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actually need to find something that moves you towards I guess that hope we know that you know the quant data and
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the qual data you know the numbers and the stories have sort of been um less related or they've been almost sort of
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distinct what we understand is that a person's experience cannot be articulated purely through numbers and
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purely through data I've had to learn a lot about the difference between quantitative and qualitative data um and I'm still
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learning within that. But obviously a mix is important because you can have facts and figures, but if that's all you've got, it doesn't tell the whole story.
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People with lived experience often feel that the complexities of their experience or or even the accuracy of their experience is not perfectly
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represented within quantitative data. I suppose within the the LAPG we're we're mindful you know really conscious of the fact that even within the diversity of
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our group we don't have perhaps all the voices um that were dis are disproportionately impacted by suicide particularly of the ones who care and
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love um you know people that are experiencing that um so in going out to the our key partners and I use the word
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partners carefully but definitely mindfully that such as Guy Dwey there's been a lot of consultation so the most important part I think of
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developing something like an outcomes framework um is the consultation to make sure in the real world it's going to work and it's going to benefit um the
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community. I mean one of the obvious benefits of the outcomes framework is developing that national consistency. So
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when we're um setting those shared outcomes, we have those shared indicators of success um and gradually
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over time ideally uh suicide prevention services um you know start collecting more
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consistent data and we we have a better understanding nationally about where we're actually at right now. So, I would love to see these outcomes not just
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being used, you know, to monitor the national strategy um and not just by the National Suicide Prevention Office um or
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the government. Even though the strategy is speaking to government responsibility, it's also speaking to that responsibility that we all have to
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help create lives where people want to live and don't feel that they need to die by suicide. We really need those
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qualitative insights to be able to to paint that complete picture. If we don't have that combination uh of the both,
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then we're always going to be missing, you know, something that could be really effective for some communities or that
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could be uh quite harmful or not necessarily um effective for others. Um and so having that that mixed methods
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approach is is really essential to doing that. So I'm hoping that the outcomes framework will be something that right across the sector whether it is the PHN
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or whether it is any organization they can use that or as a map as a as a map
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and as a guide to what they should be doing.
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The person- centered outcomes means that we put people individuals and their families at the heart of suicide prevention.
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Things can be different tomorrow to what they are today.