The Victorian Coroner’s Court reported that 772 people died by suicide in Victoria in 2024. That means thousands of people were impacted – from family members and friends to neighbours, colleagues, and classmates, as well as first responders and healthcare providers.
SEMPHN funds a number of programs aimed at improving health, mental health and wellbeing, and acknowledges that good care after the loss of a suicide is not only important for those bereaved, but also as a form of suicide prevention.
One of these ‘postvention’ services is the
Jesuit Social Services’
Support After Suicide program, which SEMPHN has been funding since July 2016. Support After Suicide currently provides postvention support across southern Melbourne and in the Frankston and Mornington areas.
“Postvention is support provided after the loss of a loved one to suicide,” says Mandy Strange, SEMPHN’S Commissioning Implementation Manager – Priority Populations. “This includes counselling, support groups, and engaging a broad range of mental health services to ensure everyone that requires support receives it. It directly supports those affected by a suicide.”
Dr Louise Flynn, the Support After Suicide program’s general manager, elaborates on how postvention supports suicide prevention.
“We know that family members and friends of individuals who die by suicide are at higher risk of taking their own lives,” Dr Flynn says. “We also know that many suicides affect entire communities, which can sometimes lead to suicide ‘clusters’ – a-higher-than-expected number of suicides occurring closely in time and space.”
When Support After Suicide is alerted to the suicide of a young person that may have a wide impact – often by Victoria Police, with whom the organisation has a close relationship – they can activate a ‘Suicide Postvention Protocol Response Group’.
“Suicide clusters are more likely to occur in close-knit groups and communities after the death, for example, of a person from a sports club or a young Aboriginal person,” Dr Flynn says. “These Suicide Postvention Protocol Response Group activations mean we can identify early who we need to reach out to in those groups, which might be schools, sports clubs, or other groups in the community.”
Support After Suicide also offers specialised counselling, support groups and online resources to support those affected by suicide. Crucially, the support is provided by highly skilled counsellors in grief, trauma and suicide loss, alongside people with lived experience of suicide bereavement.
Emma, who lost her husband to suicide and who now volunteers with and works for Support After Suicide, says she first heard of the service from the police.
“Support After Suicide actually contacted me first to say they were available whenever I needed,” Emma says. “I got back to them a couple of weeks later for counselling. Now, 4 years down the track, I volunteer with their individual peer support program and work as their Lived Experience Lead and Communications Coordinator.”
Dedicated lived experience peer volunteers in the Support After Suicide peer support program provide support to those affected by suicide after they have spoken with a bereavement counsellor. This can be through a one-on-one meeting or in a peer support group setting.
In a June 2025 program report, one peer volunteer expressed their gratitude for the “careful and specific” training they had received through the Support After Suicide program around post-suicide grief, effective listening, and supportive silence.
“I’m [also] grateful for personally experiencing the positive effect of this one-to-one relationship for both me and my peer,” they said in the report. “Continuing to be ‘present’ with another who is experiencing their post-suicide changed world is a profound privilege.”
Emma agrees. “When you are bereaved by suicide, you feel very alone,” she says. “Being able to talk with somebody who has been through the same trauma is so important.”
