SUPPORT After Suicide is a program that provides counselling and assistance to people touched by suicide.

Program co-ordinator Louise Flynn spoke to a sell-out audience in Bendigo on Friday on the eve of the city’s first suicide awareness walk.

“I spoke to TAFE students who were studying mental health and also other people in the industry on what they could do to help those affected by suicide. It was an education session,” she said.

“The aim of the seminar was to offer support to families, friends and young people.”

Ms Flynn said Support After Suicide was run by Jesuit Social Services and offered counselling, group support and an online community website for people affected by suicide.

“An important feature of our website is that there is a private online community for people who have lost loved ones to suicide,” Ms Flynn said.

“Members can discuss issues that are important to them and meet others who understand their experiences.”

During the seminar Ms Flynn highlighted the overwhelming guilt and trauma felt by people bereaved by suicide and the impact of stigma.

“There are many complex feelings and thoughts that those left behind after suicide experience, including the question of why – trying to understand how and why someone takes their own life, feeling responsible, feeling helpless that they could not prevent this happening,” she said.

“Providing care and support is particularly important as those left behind struggle with feeling like they are the only ones to be going through this.”

Ms Flynn said people should be allowed to grieve in their own way, but contacting and offering them support was crucial.

“There is a tendency to shy away from people grieving a suicide as people feel they don’t know what to do or say,” she said.

“So keeping in touch, being patient, allowing people to do what they need to do are important and offering practical support are helpful ways to respond.”

Ms Flynn said members of the Bendigo community have also travelled to Melbourne to meet her.

“We do face to face counselling. People from around Victoria do come in and talk to us,” she said.

Ms Flynn said the organisation had also created information sheets about suicide that could be downloaded.

She said the Department of Health and Ageing funded Support After Suicide under the National Suicide Prevention Program.

For more information about the program, visit the