Workshop or Forum (max 3.5 hours) National Suicide Prevention Conference 2026

Co-Design in suicide prevention: moving beyond consultation and tokenism to authentic partnership and power sharing (130879)

Bonnie Scarth 1 , Sarah Hetrick 2 , Natalie Brown 3 , Taimi Allan 4 , Linda Bowden 2 , Kylie King 5 , Ben Brien 6 , Hiro Kojo 1 , Suzi Wereta 7 , Julie Levin 1 , Nicola Akeroyd 1
  1. Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  2. Department of Psychological Medicine , The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
  3. Our Booris, Our Way, Canberra, ACT, Australia
  4. Mental Health, Mental Health Commissioner, Adelaide, SA, Australia
  5. School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
  6. National Suicide Prevention Office, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  7. Te Kāika, Dunedin, Aotearoa/New Zealand

Co-design or co-production is a widely used term, but still poorly understood and executed in some areas of suicide prevention research and development. There are numerous reasons to undertake a co-design process with lived experience, such as greater translatability of research, increased consumer engagement in programmes, and ensuring that the focus of the research or programme development is what is actually important to the community it is meant to serve.

Co-designing with Aboriginal and Māori peoples with lived experience presents additional challenges, stemming from the historical and ongoing impacts of colonisation and systemic racism. For co-design to be successful and not just a tokenistic exercise, these challenges must be addressed head-on.

Despite the importance of co-design and lived experience partnerships, the process of how researchers or organisations undertake engagement and co-design is still often haphazard and lacking in power sharing. This can result in poor quality research and poorly executed programme development. Unfortunately, co-design or lived experience is often scapegoated as “the problem” in such cases, when the fault instead lies with poor methodology and processes on the part of researchers’ or programme development managers.

As such, this workshop aims to help attendees who work in suicide prevention research or programme development, expand their skills in co-design and lived-experience partnerships and engagement through learning about:

  • What co-design is – and is not.
  • Cultural safety and data sovereignty.
  • Why co-design and lived experience engagement is highly valuable – and, in fact, critical - in suicide prevention.
  • Engaging with lived experience in safe and respectful ways.
  • The importance of power sharing and how power sharing can aid research and programme development quality.
  • Integrating co-design and lived experience into a variety of research methodologies utilised in suicide prevention.
  • Integrating co-design and lived experience into programme development in suicide prevention.

The workshop will be co-facilitated by: 1) academics who have extensive suicide prevention research experience and have undertaken a variety of co-design research projects with lived experience communities; 2) lived and living experience experts who have participated in co-design projects in suicide prevention; and, 3) professionals who have worked in programme development in suicide prevention. Some of the facilitators have experience across all expertise categories.

Participants will take part in whole group activities as well as breakout group exercises with different facilitators. The workshop will be as interactive as possible to ensure participants feel engaged and catered to across different learning styles.