Suicide Postvention is said to be one of the forms to prevent suicide, as persons who were bereaved by suicide are up to eight times more likely to take their life than the general population (CBPATSISP, 2023). Active Response Bereavement Outreach (ARBOR) is the suicide postvention program operating in the Perth metropolitan area since 2008 by Anglicare WA and is currently funded by WA Primary Health Alliance. This evidence-based program is delivered by the team, which is a blend of therapists and peer workers with lived experience.
Lived Experience Group is one of the suicide bereavement support groups in ARBOR, which occurs monthly in three different locations (East Perth, Kingsley, and Rockingham). They are open groups that allow individuals to attend and to stop coming according to their needs, and all facilitators have lived experience of suicide bereavement. The groups have successfully increased the annual number of participations by 265.4% from 2023 to 2025. This is not only due to the increase in the number of referrals from other postvention programs such as Standby and CYPRESS, but also because of the higher retention rate. Among 2025 group participants (n=57), 66.7% of them attended the group more than twice, and this number has increased from 45.5% in 2023. Moreover, approximately 40% (38.6%) of them took part in the group more than five times within a year, which is a significant rise from 15.2% in 2023.
ARBOR Peer Support Volunteers and Lived Experience Coordinator with social work background collaboratively developed and implemented several strategies to foster participants’ sense of emotional safety and belonging, which led to an increase in retention. These includes acknowledgement and validation of participants’ challenges in relation to their first group participation, amending group agreements, encouraging every single participant, including counsellors and coordinators, to also share their lived experience in the group, and an increase of points of interactions with participants through phone calls, emails and events. The presentation includes qualitative data collected from group attendees and volunteers, applying a phenomenological approach as evidence.
Although multiple studies suggest that peer suicide bereavement support groups are beneficial, a need for more studies on groups’ practices and processes is identified (Morrissey et al., 2024). This presentation would provide insight into the micro-processes of an effective suicide bereavement support group that achieved greater popularity and outcomes.