The Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) established the APS Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Unit last year and has now welcomed its six-module suicide prevention eLearning suite, Compassionate Foundations.
Billed as a first for the APS, the suite has been designed to provide every member of the APS with the foundational skills to recognise and respond to someone in distress and potentially save a life.
In a statement, the APSC said Compassionate Foundations taught suicide prevention skills framed around relationships rather than risk assessment.
“Its learning objectives support positive human-to-human interactions that promote connection and understanding,” the APSC said.
“The Unit is working closely with Agencies across the APS to support the roll out of the suite to their workforces,” it said.
“Day-to-day, the Unit is delivering impactful work, providing Agencies with specialised and personalised support to align their practices to the APS Mental Health Capability Framework and to develop their maturity of practice in relation to mental health, wellbeing and suicide prevention.”
It said that as an example in February of this year the Unit coordinated an event for the APS HR Professional Stream.
“More than 500 APS HR professionals from 81 Agencies registered to attend The Future of Work – How Critical is Mental Health and Wellbeing? online webinar,” the APSC said.
“Chaired by a panel of HR experts from across the service, the online webinar explored a range of topics connected to delivering a future-ready APS that has a firm investment in the mental health and wellbeing of its workforce.”
It said that through the development and delivery of a range of targeted, evidence-informed resources, the Unit was empowering Agencies to develop their mental health capability and support their workforce.
“These resources can be tailored by Agencies to suit their operating context,” the APSC said.
It said the Unit publishes a quarterly digital newsletter, APS eXchange , which provides opportunities for APS staff to build their mental health literacy and share stories of success from across the APS.
The latest edition of APS eXchange can be accessed at this PS News link and the Unit’s team is Rachael McMahon, Connie Galati, Anne Mayberry, Sam Junor, Susannah Zuckerman, Maddie Morton and Jasmin Robertson.
