StandBy’s ‘Friends of StandBy’ initiative promotes awareness of suicide loss.
The aim of the program is to:
We’re excited to announce a new ambassador for StandBy Support After Suicide … Tara J Lal, Senior Firefighter, PhD scholar and author of memoir ‘Standing on my Brother’s Shoulders: Making Peace with Grief and Suicide.’
Through her book, Tara speaks of a difficult childhood with her father’s mental health concerns and her mother’s death (when she was 13), and the suicide of her older brother Adam, who tragically took his life four years after the loss of her mother. She speaks of how a ‘conversation’ with Adam (through the diaries he left behind), helped her to find her reason to live.
Now a Senior Fire Fighter, Tara has run the psychological wellbeing program for Fire and Rescue NSW and is trained in suicide prevention. She is a mental health first aid instructor and volunteers her time as part of the peer support team at Fire and Rescue NSW to support firefighters suffering from mental health conditions and in the wake of traumatic incidents.
She is also completing her PhD, which focusses on understanding the impact of exposure to suicide on firefighters both through the tragic suicides they encounter on the job as well as when a fellow firefighter takes their own life. Tara aims to use her research to develop evidence-based suicide preparedness, prevention and postvention programs for firefighters.
Tara is also a professional speaker, regularly sharing her experiences to a wide variety of organisations as a way to create connection and understanding of mental illness and suicide in the community.
StandBy is QIP Accredited as an organisation. Implemented by Suicide Prevention Australia and assessed by independent, not-for-profit accreditation provider, Quality Innovation Performance Limited (QIP), the Suicide Prevention Accreditation Program supports organisations to deliver safe, high-quality and effective suicide prevention and postvention programs.
StandBy respectfully acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples as Australia’s First People and Traditional Custodians. We value their cultures, identities, continuing connection to country, waters, kin and community. We pay our respects to Elders past and present and emerging. We are committed to making a positive contribution to the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, by providing services that are welcoming, safe, culturally appropriate, and inclusive.
StandBy acknowledges and pays respect to elders, advocates, activists, and allies of our LGBTIQA+SB communities. We affirm the support provided and acknowledge the cost involved in standing up for the rights of LGBTIQA+SB people.
StandBy recognises and honours the continued contribution of those with a lived experience of suicide bereavement. The courage, insight and wisdom of these unique experiences, strengthens the work that we do. We also acknowledge and remember the lives that have ended due to suicide and we encourage ongoing support and care for yourself and each other.
