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The Canberra Business Podcast
A podcast about all things Canberra Business.
The Canberra Business Podcast
Creating a Safer Community Through Mental Health Education and Crisis Support
How can we create a safer community through mental health education and crisis support? Join us as we engage in a compelling conversation with Carrie-Ann Leeson, the Chief Executive of Lifeline Canberra, who shares her profound insights into the critical work her organization is doing. With a network of nearly 1,000 dedicated volunteers, including 400 highly-trained crisis supporters, Lifeline Canberra plays a pivotal role in suicide prevention and mental health education.
Carrie-Ann sheds light on the increasing number of calls related to anxiety, burnout, antisocial behavior, isolation and unique pressures experienced by small business owners. We discuss the urgent need for adaptability in addressing these issues and examine how we can work proactively to halt crises before they begin.
This episode is supported by CareSuper.
I'm Greg Harford from the Canberra Business Chamber, and this is the Canberra Business Podcast. Today we're talking about mental health and running not-for-profit organisations, and I'm really pleased to be joined by Carrie Ann Leeson, the Chief Executive of Lifeline Canberra. Carrie, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Now, most people here in Canberra will have heard of Lifeline. You've got a high profile. You're an organisation that exists to support people in crisis and help save lives, particularly with a focus on those experiencing thoughts of suicide. It's really important work, but what are you actually doing in the business to help those in need?
Speaker 2:Look, thank you for that description. It is ultimately, for those of us that work or associate or volunteer with Lifeline Canberra, it's an organisation we can't imagine a world without. So, in terms of what we do, we offer both preventative intervention and postvention services. We concentrate on the Canberra community. We offer our services either face-to-face in the prevention space, with training, trying to educate, whether it's suicide, mental health, first aid, whether it's accidental counselling or whether it's dealing with people in difficult situations. On the front line, we work very, very closely in intervention with our emergency services. We have a very wonderful relationship with them that spans over many decades. It's a very, very tough space and we provide not only support for them but we rely on them as well with our service. And then, of course, in the postvention space, we deal with bereaved by suicide support groups, individuals who have lost loved ones to suicide. So it's an incredibly difficult space for the volunteers and for our team to sit, but it is easily the most rewarding because you can see the impact on our wonderful community here in Canberra.
Speaker 1:Now many people when they hear about Lifeline they'll be thinking about a crisis support line. But that education and training component of what you do. How does that work? Who are you training and what sort of things does that cover?
Speaker 2:yes. So essentially it's so interesting to me. We have grown up and it's just a culturally so appropriate for workplaces and individuals whether you're starting a family or otherwise to take a first aid course. We all know how to treat a snake bite or a spider bite or a cut. We all know who to call in the instance that we do have a physical injury.
Speaker 2:We are working day and night to try and educate people around the benefits of doing mental health first aid. It's one of the biggest issues that most of us will face at some point in our life, either ourselves or supporting others, and having the skills to be able to do that in a meaningful and measurable way is something that we should all be aiming to do. I wish that everyone would make it a resolution this year to do some first aid training, do some mental health first aid training. We'll all be safer as a result. But the beautiful thing about mental health training is it starts with yourself. It starts with understanding self-awareness and understanding your own signals when you are moving along a continuum of mental health.
Speaker 2:We do that in the workplace setting, in the community setting and also privately. People come in and book into our public sessions for training. We do different levels of training depending on what you're interested in. If you're looking at self-care and self-awareness, we have incredibly powerful courses there. We do mental health first aid and training that's around just understanding mental health as a concept, understanding the signs, how to have a tough conversation with individuals if you notice that they're struggling. And then we do suicide first aid and suicide intervention training. Our crisis supporters undertake three months of training to be able to take a call. That allows them to pick up that phone, not knowing what might come down the other end, and be able to support the individual through that moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that must be pretty harrowing for the people who are taking those calls for your volunteers. How many volunteers have you got?
Speaker 2:Yes, so close to 1,000 volunteers. Here in Canberra we have the highest volunteer-to-population ratio in the country by a long shot. So it is the most incredible community. We are so grateful to everyone that volunteers and supports Lifeline Canberra. But it proves itself whenever we go to our national conference and we get put on a graph. So thank you. Big shout out to everyone and all of our volunteers there.
Speaker 2:We have around 1,000, around 400 are on the phones and they have to do a fortnightly shift to be able to maintain that crisis supporter badge. That's for two reasons they do a lot of professional development, we do clinical supervision, we do ongoing training and then, of course, there's time on the phones and that's for their safety as well as the safety of the caller. The individuals, believe it or not, by the time they get to taking that call they are ready, as you say. It sounds a bit daunting. Having started on the phones myself about 15 years ago, I remember going through the training and being very ready to take that first call. The amount of support that Laughline Canberra staff the supervisors give to the crisis supporters makes them feel very supported in that moment, irrespective of what comes down the phone.
Speaker 1:So 1,000 volunteers, 400 on the phones.
Speaker 2:How big is?
Speaker 1:your team. It must be reasonably sized to be able to manage that.
Speaker 2:There are 14 paid team members at Lifeline Canberra, so we operate at a ratio of about 1 to 90. They are the most incredible humans. They've all come to Lifeline either through volunteering themselves and, like myself, saw an opportunity to just dive right in. But these individuals work across training, administration and then, obviously, the safety, training and supervision of the crisis support teams. We've also got a couple of incredible humans out at the warehouse who support the volunteers, who are processing and sorting all of our donations for the book fairs.
Speaker 1:So, in terms of how you fundraise, you've got a book fair every year. You seek donations from people in the community and corporates. But I mean, are there other ways? How are you funded?
Speaker 2:yeah. So one of the first issues I guess for me to solve coming into the role was the issue around funding. The government funding that we receive is around the two hundred thousand dollar per annum mark. That's um very little if you look at the amount of service we provide in Canberra to over 40,000 Canberrans. Almost 10% of the Canberra community utilize our services at some point during a year.
Speaker 2:So we had to find another way. We developed commercial operations so we generate our own revenue through the corporate training. We have evidence-based programs and partnerships with Canada, licenses that only exist through our brand and we deliver training through departments, through the emergency services, through private sector and community sector organizations, and that generates the revenue that we require to be able to deliver the service to the high degree that we do. We also then have all of our fundraising. Which is the lifeblood of our organisation is that book fair. We have three a year. They are huge. We've also got our gala events and then we've got incredible third-party fundraising where individuals come to us and say I would like to do this, that or the next thing and we want the proceeds to go to your services. So we work across all of those areas financially to be able to sustain the service.
Speaker 1:And the service is well used. Right, I understand there's 35, perhaps a little over 35,000 callers a year into Lifeline that suggests that demand is massive really out there in the community. What's driving that and do you think that changes from year to year?
Speaker 2:We look at the reasons. So the service itself is anonymous, so we don't know who's calling, but we do capture information that allows us and guides us in our education and training, in our preventative services as well. So we will capture the primary reason that someone calls. We'll also capture the secondary reason for their call and then we will capture the focus of the call With some other de-identified data. It just helps, again, move the service along and make sure that it's appropriate and relevant to the callers. Service along and make sure that it's appropriate and relevant to the callers.
Speaker 2:The primary reason that people call is relationships. It's been relationships every year. In my 10 years at Lifeline it's been the number one reason that people call, Either people struggling with friendships, intimate relationships, or family, work relationships. But relationships is the number one theme and that's often due to relationship breakdowns. The reason we capture, interestingly, the secondary reason for the call is that when you scratch the surface and you start to discuss the issues with the individual, you'll see that there's a reason.
Speaker 2:Someone might ring up and say my partner has left me and sort of five minutes into the call, when you're connected and there's trust there, the conversation is flowing. You might find that they reveal that they have a gambling addiction or they have a substance abuse problem or domestic violence is playing an enormous role in that dynamic. So the crisis supporter will go with that individual on the journey. So the top five reasons that people call relationships substance abuse or misuse, loss of a loved one, grief and financial distress or isolation. So there's a lot in there and sometimes those are interrelated and complex, COVID obviously through an entire layer of isolation and anxiety which we're still seeing the ramifications of even today and do you find demand is fairly consistent from year to year or is it growing over time?
Speaker 2:demand is growing, the complexity of that demand is growing. So not only are more people reaching out to the service, the calls are more complex. So anxiety, antisocial behavior, burnout, harper reactivity and isolation are, you know, sort of coming through as as themes on on the calls that we're taking now. These weren't so prominent five years ago. So we have to ask ourselves how do do we adapt, how do we adjust? What do we do further upstream for individuals to try and prevent them from getting into this space? We will always, unfortunately, need a lifeline, but we always try and strive to put ourselves out of business.
Speaker 1:And how does it work? I mean, how are you spending some time on a call with someone and then are you. How does it work? I mean, you're spending some time on a call with someone and then are you. Is there follow-up through Lifeline or are you referring customers on to other services?
Speaker 2:What's the go? There we have the most incredibly sophisticated database. We will take calls from individuals who so, depending on the complexity of their situation, their financial position, their capability to access services, their transport options, we can find services based on what they would like to work on. We're there to support them decide next steps. Once they decide on the next steps, we can use our databases to ensure that we can get them to relevant services at the right time, in the right way and comfortably. Sometimes people need free services. Sometimes people don't have a vehicle, need public transport, or need free public transport rather, so we will assist them in all of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and do you provide some of that follow-up service yourselves?
Speaker 2:We don't follow up. One of the toughest things about being a crisis supporter is that you never know what happens. You are there for a point in time, that point of crisis, and if you've handed them over to emergency services, you know sometimes you might get a loop back. I have taken a call before where an individual was struggling, had overdosed and was slowly in decline. But I was on the call long enough and they did stay with me long enough for the AMBO to pick up the phone and say we're with them now. That is incredibly rare. I've never taken another call like it. Often we have to walk away from our shift knowing we were there. We were grateful that we were there, but we don't know what happens.
Speaker 1:So there must be a fair degree of resilience needed to be a volunteer for Lifeline.
Speaker 2:That's the biggest question. When people hear what Lifeline does, they say to us I wish I could help, there's no ways I could be on the phones. You need time and you need empathy. The training gives you everything else. It's not necessarily a resilience. It's about being able to feel what you feel. It's about going into situations adequately prepared, knowing that you were there. It's about understanding that you've got everything that that individual needs in that moment to be able to guide them through. The individual has to do all of the work. You're really just facilitating that conversation. You're listening, you're helping them to gain clarity and give themselves strength. You're finding that reason to live and breathing life into it, and that's all a skill, but that you can acquire through the training. The beautiful thing about the training and being a volunteer is that you use that skill outside of the phone room as well.
Speaker 1:So running a small business can be very challenging obviously and we often hear anecdotally a lot about the mental health of small business people especially when things aren't going so well. Do you know and maybe you don't, because your data is confidential and anonymous, but do you get a lot of small business people ringing your services for support?
Speaker 2:No one's immune. I think they are what differentiates a small business person from someone in the public service or someone who's unemployed, stay-at-home parent. What differentiates them are the pressures that they face and their capacity or capability to tackle those stresses. And that's when stress arises, where a challenge occurs, and your skills to manage that challenge have a bigger or a smaller gap. So it's really when you look at small business, you look at the economy, you look at things that would put pressure on a small business, you look at things that would put pressure on a small business, you look at something that would put pressure on the individuals that work within a small business, and then it's very easy to see what might cause that individual stress.
Speaker 2:The thing that we don't know about small business owners is that we don't have a personal and a professional backpack. We don't leave our personal backpack at the door when we arrive at work. What goes on when they're at home? What about their biological or their historical risks? Individuals come to you with baked in risks. So there's so much more than just, I guess, the defining factor that is small business. But there are obviously pressures that can be specific to small businesses.
Speaker 1:So we're recording this podcast in early 2025. There's still obviously a lot of financial and other stress in the community. There's a lot of concern about what might be happening internationally in the geopolitical space. What advice do you have, Carrie, for people who might be feeling a bit down, a bit worried, a bit insecure or even worse?
Speaker 2:feeling a bit down, a bit worried, a bit insecure or even worse. Look, it's hard to say to someone you know reach out, do the work. Sometimes people are fatigued or they've already tried one or two things that haven't worked. I think if you're not in that position and you're sitting with a clean slate thinking, well, what could I do? Absolutely prevention, education A four-hour course can change your life, can change the life of someone you care about and love, can change the trajectory of your life. Understanding your own physical and emotional well-being is something that we all need to be able to do. I think what we're finding is many, many more people are becoming incompatible with their environment, and that's showing in their behavior and it's showing in the way they address health concerns or challenges. So what could you do is absolutely educate yourself. I think placing yourself in the center, prioritizing your well-being you know, applying your own oxygen mask before assisting others I think might feel selfish, especially in our culture. It's important to do it. You can do so much more. Self-care well-being is a very, very big priority for my team and I and we do a lot of you know evidence-based, but also you know a spiritual or other offerings, so that people can access health and wellbeing. So it's really, I think, about taking the time to decide where you are. If you're okay, try and stay okay. Look at what you can do education to stay okay. If you're feeling as though you're not okay, reach out.
Speaker 2:An organization like Lifeline isn't just there to assist people who are having thoughts of suicide. We're there to help anyone who wants to improve their situation or anyone that's struggling with a challenge. If you feel as though you're injured or you're unwell mentally, it's about going to your GP and saying to them look just like you would if you had a cold or a flu or a headache or an ongoing heart or stomach concern. You would go to your GP and say, look, this is hassling me, I'm not sure what to do next. Gps are empowered to provide you with free mental health sessions with psychologists. They can provide you with a mental health plan. They can refer you on to psychiatrists if you need assessment or treatment. I call it a checkup from the neck up If you're looking for something to do. I'm sure everyone's very busy, but certainly put that as a priority this year.
Speaker 1:Okay, and in terms of the courses that you mentioned four-hour course to change your life what's sort of the price point of that? Are they accessible for ordinary Canberrans?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. The courses start at a couple of hundred dollars, but we do often have incredible humans who provide funding, so we have free spaces in most of our courses and you can always inquire about those. During COVID, we ran free self-compassion courses. They booked out for eight weeks in advance.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So we know people are ready to have these conversations.
Speaker 1:Excellent. And that demand, I mean you know how much of it are you meeting? What's the untapped demand out there do you think for your services?
Speaker 2:In terms of the call answer rate.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah. I mean in terms of people who aren't reaching out, but perhaps could I mean what's stopping?
Speaker 2:that it's stigma. So in a lot of our training, one of the primary modules is stigma, but more importantly, self-stigma People's fear, people's fear of ramifications or judgment can often be a barrier to seeking care, and that's something that we're working very hard to try and get around. A lot of, A lot of shared stories, a lot of lived experience, brave individuals who've undertaken the challenge of overcoming their illnesses or managing their illnesses, seeking support. They talk about it and these individuals are inspiring and they're everywhere. They weren't everywhere. 10 years ago you couldn't even talk about mental health in the workplace. 10 years ago I know, coming from corporate health you could go in and put an injection or a vaccination in someone's arm, but you couldn't necessarily ask them about their stress levels. We've come a long way since then. So I think one of the barriers is stigma. That's one of the things. We don't want to make financial or finances a barrier as well. So we work very hard to make everything accessible to everyone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about the operations of running Lifeline. Now. Being a CEO sounds very glamorous but what's the? Practical reality of running a not-for-profit in your experience.
Speaker 2:Oh, this role is. You know I'm so privileged to be in the role. I am so fortunate and grateful to have been in the role for as long as I have. It's so varied. Here I am doing a podcast. I mean, we sound like a bad joke. A South African and a New Zealander walk into a studio, but we get to do podcasts.
Speaker 2:This week I've done photo shoots. I've, you know, met with ministers. You know you're out there doing incredibly what you say glamorous things. You're out there doing incredibly what you say, glamorous things. That's a very small percentage of my role. What I would like my priority to be is my team. I focus as much as humanly possible on what makes our workplace a sanctuary for them. How do they live their best life whilst choosing Lifeline every day, and that's the same for our volunteers and that could involve, you know, emptying the bins on a Friday or having team meetings. It's, you know it's so varied. I've never had a day, my mentor said to me, when you've had a year like the year before, it's time to think about leaving. I haven't had a day that's like the day before.
Speaker 1:That's very great. So, lots of varied activity. What are the biggest challenges you face?
Speaker 2:It's people, you know. I think it's one of the things. People are the largest resource in your organisation, and people, by nature, can be unpredictable. It's very easy to set in place processes to give people the tools that they need to do the role. How ready they are, how resilient they are, what they're going through, both personally and professionally, in that moment determines ultimately the output. So ensuring that individuals are living their best lives whilst achieving great things for the organisation is the hardest part. But it's really about, for me, being accessible and being open to and ready to have any conversation at any time.
Speaker 1:What's your relationship with Lifeline nationally, because you're the ACT Lifeline.
Speaker 2:Are you part of a?
Speaker 1:national organisation, nationally, because you're the ACT Lifeline Are you part of a national organisation.
Speaker 2:So Lifeline is a brand and was born out of a church in Sydney. Over 60 years ago. One reverend lost a member of his church to suicide and he acquired a phone and announced that he would be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to anyone in his community that needed help. So from there we were born, and so you've got 42 centres around the country who are separate from one another. We have separate ABNs, we operate differently and then you've got Lifeline Australia, which is a much newer company. They were born a couple of decades ago. Ultimately, a membership was formed, a federated structure, and everyone that hears the word federation or federated structure right now in the community sector is probably shuddering. And the truth is, yes, we feel all of the pain and all of the dysfunction that comes with the federated structure. We have very little to do with Lifeline Australia in an operational sense. We have a licensing agreement where we provide the service through their brand and they provide us with training and infrastructure.
Speaker 1:So really you're providing services for Canberrans by Canberrans yes, 100%. If you could wave a magic wand, Carrie, what would? You like to see happen differently, to support businesses in your space that are providing mental health support for the community.
Speaker 2:I think there is a lot of duplication. We have hundreds of thousands of not-for-profits. I think we have the ability to be a lot more efficient and I think we have the ability to work together and collaborate more. Unfortunately, fundraising and funding can be a barrier to collaboration. I learned that very early on and I understand that it is difficult sometimes when you've agreed or you're trying to acquit funding, to collaborate and skew your programs.
Speaker 2:But I think on the back end shared services we could do a lot more to share and we do at Lifeline Canberra. We try and provide all of the documentation and all of the infrastructure, all of the governance documents and compliance documents, because we do follow international best practice. With all of that We've got an incredible board. We share that information with other not-for-profits to sort of give them a real head start. But I think in terms of the current situation, I guess, or environment, there are way too many not-for-profits. We do need to consolidate and we do need to join up our certainly our back-end services like administration and finance, to be able to send more funding to the front line to the people that need it.
Speaker 1:And that's obviously an ongoing challenge for anyone in that not-for-profit space and certainly something that's challenging to work through, I think, and there's probably no easy solutions there.
Speaker 2:But I wish you luck and try to work it through.
Speaker 1:Carrie, there may be some people who are listening to this, who are just sort of thinking. They'd like to reach out for some support or perhaps access education and training services that you offer. How should they do that?
Speaker 2:So lifelinecanberraorgau is our website. That's a very easy-to-na, easy to navigate space for both prevention, intervention and postvention services. If you'd like to volunteer, if you wanted to purchase a table to the gala, if you wanted to find out where to donate books, everything is available on that website. It's a great first port of call. We are here in Canberra. We do have a front desk and a team that can take calls, non-crisis related and, of course, if you are needing support, we have a dedicated crisis support number.
Speaker 1:And you can access all of that through lifelinecanberraorgau. Excellent, carrie. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Greg Harford and this has been the Canberra Business Podcast. I've been talking to Carrie-Anne Leeson, the Chief Executive of Lifeline Canberra. It's been great having you here and learning a little bit more about Lifeline.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:And this podcast has been brought to you by the Canberra Business Chamber with the support of CareSuper, an industry super fund with competitive fees and returns, exceptional service and a focus on real care. So thanks CareSuper and thanks Carrie. And don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast platform to stay up to date with the latest edition of the Canberra Business Podcast.