Evaluation of Alternatives to Suicide (Alt2Su) Project

responsibility to, not for or over people

About the Evaluation

 

Throughout 2022 and 2023 LELAN is implementing the Alternatives to Suicide (Alt2Su) approach in South Australia. To support this, LELAN has commissioned an evaluation of Alt2Su to understand:

      • How well has Alt2Su been implemented?
      • What difference has it made to people attending Alt2Su groups, and the service system?
      • How can implementation be improved?

The evaluation will explore if and how the Alt2Su program works, and if it could be expanded to other areas or groups of people. Five to seven ‘pilot’ groups targeting different population groups will be part of the formal evaluation and will be the first groups to form. The evaluators have been working with LELAN, Alt2Su facilitators and others with lived experience to develop these questions and collect information that answers them.

The evaluation will be:

      • Lived experience-led – the evaluation team each has their own lived experience of suicidality and mental distress, and throughout the project we’re working with people with lived experience to collect information in a way that has deep respect for diverse knowledges and perspectives.
      • Useful – we want the evaluation to make a difference! Throughout the project, we’ll be keeping LELAN and Alt2Su facilitators involved to implement what we are learning.
      • Relationally safe – the evaluation will create a safe and trusting environment, drawing on the principles of Intentional Peer Support and Alt2Su. We will be person-centred in our approach, which means we will focus on if and how you would like to participate in the project. We acknowledge the possibility of trauma in the lives of all participants, and will be led by your needs and preferences create a safe and engaging project.

Get Involved

 

We would love to know what you think about Alt2Su in South Australia. If you have attended an Alt2Su group, there are several ways that you can get involved in the evaluation!

          1. Complete this short survey – it only takes 3 minutes and asks you about your experiences attending an Alt2Su group. To complete the survey, you are required to tell us which group you attended.

          2. Take part in an interview – As part of the evaluation, the evaluation team would like to speak with people who have attended an Alt2Su group in SA. We hope to complete interviews with up to 8 people. The interviews will take about 30 minutes and be completed on zoom or phone at a time that works for you.The interviews will be anonymous – nothing identifiable about you will be shared with LELAN, the program funders or other participants in Alt2Su. If you would like to take part in an interview – or have any questions about the interviews – please email LELANAlt2SuEval@gmail.com. For more information on the interviews and how your information will be used, see the project information sheet.

          3. Send us your thoughts! You can email us at LELANAlt2SuEval@gmail.com with your thoughts and experiences of Alt2Su. We welcome these in whatever format works for you – written comments, voicenote, photos, art. Please read this information sheet before you submit anything.

Please note, if you send us something:

      • By law, we are required to keep any submissions for five years. These will only be accessible via password protected computers. No one outside of our team will have access to what you have sent us.
      • If you later decide that you don’t want your information used in our project, you can let us know. To do that, email us by November 15th 2022 to make sure we have time to remove your information before we write our interim report or by March 31st 2023 to make sure we have time to remove your information before we write our final report (which will be public).
      • We will not name you in the reports or use anything that might identify you, but may use quotes.

About the Evaluators

Flick Grey (she/her/we)

Flick’s work as a consumer academic, trainer and consultant interweaves her own lived experience of trauma, suicidality and extreme states, deep engagement with the international consumer/survivor movement and Mad Studies. She first trained in Alternatives to Suicide in 2017.

Flick loves being in wild spaces and navigating human messiness and complexity, which is fortunate as she also parents a toddler.

Sar Bostock (they/she/he)

Sar has worked as a peer worker, consumer consultant and evaluator, using their lived experience of distress and crisis alongside their experiences of physical disability and pain.

Sar is also a writer, and is never without their greyhound named Sago.

Jo Farmer (she/her)

Jo is an evaluator focused on improving experiences for people experiencing mental distress and trauma. She has done research in the health sector for over 10 years and has a particular interest in designing lived experience-led evaluations.

Jo has her own lived experience of suicidality and mental distress. She is originally from the UK and has recently appreciated being able to (finally) return to the UK to visit friends and family.

This project is made possible by financial support from Wellbeing SA, Country SA PHN Primary Health Network and Adelaide PHN Primary Health Network – including monetary contribution from LELAN.

The Alternatives to Suicide Groups Charter defines the principles and values of support groups using the Alternatives to Suicide approach: Responsibility to – and not for or over; Consent and choice; Responses to injustice; and Healing in communities.

Connect with our team

If you have more questions reach out to the LELAN team via info@lelan.org.au or contact Tanya our Peer Project Worker (Suicide Prevention) via tanya@lelan.org.au .