An Ocean Grove woman is helping bring a community safe space to Torquay to support people who are experiencing emotional or suicidal distress across the region.
Kim Edgar will work alongside Roses in the Ocean as a volunteer to launch the Surf Coast Community-led Safe Space in February next year at Torquay Community House to provide a welcoming environment for people impacted by suicide.
Ms Edgar said the space was about providing a safe, non-judgemental and non-clinical space for people impacted by suicide.
“If you’re experiencing suicidal distress or mental health issues, whatever that looks like, there’s this kind of stigma that you’re a bit broken, but you’re not,” she said.
“People are not broken; they’re just going through a tough time…and having open conversations with people that they can trust is a really important part of breaking down that stigma.”
Safe space volunteers, known as Peer Care Companions, are people with lived experience of mental health, suicide or bereavement who are trained to use their lived experience to support others.
Ms Edgar said she was inspired to help people throughout their mental health journeys after her son Daniel died from suicide seven and a half years ago at the age of 17.
“You don’t move on; you move forward, and the thing that’s helped me is being able to have conversations with people who have a similar lived experience,” she said.
“Everybody’s lived experience is different, and no one person has the same lived experience, but what we know is that there are some real commonalities in that experience.
“Sometimes people can have good supports around them; they can have good clinical supports and wonderful friends and family, but they can still feel isolated from the people around them.”
Roses in the Ocean is a lived experience suicide prevention organisation that aims to save lives and reduce emotional distress and pain, with a community consultation held on 29 October for people to hear more about the safe space initiative.
Email safespaces@rosesintheocean.com.au for more more information or to find out more about volunteer opportunities.
