IN one year, Lifeline’s central Victorian office answered more than 22,500 calls – 14,000 more than a decade earlier.

The Central Victoria and Mallee office claims to be Australia’s most effective Lifeline centres, answering more calls than any other in regional Victoria. 

But running costs have increased, as has caller demand. 

As a result, Lifeline is reaching out to the community for funding assistance for the first time. 

The amount of money the centre receives is stable, but barely enough to maintain its current level of service. 

Shifts have been cut back within the past 18 months because of financial considerations.

Meanwhile, the number of Australians taking their own lives is increasing. 

In this week’s news focus, Lifeline Central Victoria and Mallee shares with us the need to invest to evolve and save more lives. 

The centre has, in the past, been focused on the delivery of the 13 11 14 24-hour telephone crisis support service. 

It now wants to deliver more community engagement, suicide prevention, and suicide recovery programs, starting with a session on Wednesday night in Bendigo about responding to depression, anxiety and isolation in the workplace. 

Lifeline Central Victoria and Mallee also wants to extend its reach to regional cities without a Lifeline centre, including Shepparton and Mildura. 

Lifeline received more than a million calls for help in the past financial year – about 850,000 were answered.

Telephone crisis supporters in Bendigo were on the other end of 22,563 of those calls.

Chief executive officer Leo Schultz said Lifeline Central Victoria and Mallee answered more calls than any other Victorian regional centre with “substantially less revenue.” 

“For a given amount of money we answer three times as many calls as the Lifeline average,” he said. 

But the service needs about $50,000 a year more than it is getting now to maintain its level of service.  

It wants to be able to answer more calls and offer more community engagement, suicide prevention and suicide recovery programs. 

“We have lots of capacity to increase our services with the infrastructure we have got,” Mr Schultz said.

“This expansion in our ambitions and service delivery will need to be funded, and this is why we are calling on the local community, in particular the business community of Bendigo, to come to our aid.”

Mr Schultz said it was the first time Lifeline had directly appealed to the community for financial donations.

The centre is mostly funded by the state government, which has contributed consistent funding tied to consumer price index for the past 10 years. 

Lifeline Central Victoria and Mallee received about $130,000 this financial year.

“Our current contract with the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services guarantees a base level of revenue until the 2019 financial year – this is a position that would be the envy of most not-for-profit organisations,” Mr Schultz said. 

The Loddon Shire is the only one of the 10 local government areas the centre services that contributes money, although Mr Schultz would not reveal the sum. 

He said compliance costs for Lifeline centres had increased over the past four years because of the need for additional training and support for volunteers. The number of calls to Lifeline is also increasing. 

“We are not meeting current demand, so in order to do that every centre needs to increase what they are doing,” Mr Schultz said. 

Also affecting the centre’s budget was Lifeline Australia’s decision to redirect funding from the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), which would previously have been distributed to local centres, to a paid overnight service. 

“We lost almost $50,000 a year on that decision, but to the net benefit of callers nationally,” Mr Schultz said.

Calls between midnight and 6am are answered by paid staff, eliminating the need for a 24-hour volunteer roster.

Lifeline Central Victoria and Mallee has the equivalent of two full-time staff and about 65 volunteers, some of whom have additional training to supervise calls. 

It costs about $1500 to train a Lifeline volunteer, and if there is one word telephone crisis supporter Debbie would use to describe the process, it's “thorough”.

Training involves four hours a week of face-to-face sessions for eight weeks, plus three hours a week of e-learning. 

“We do it much more cheaply than any other lifeline centre,” Lifeline Central Victoria and Mallee chief executive officer Leo Schultz said. 

The centre charges volunteers about $400 to complete the course. Mr Schultz said every other Lifeline centre charged more – up to $1000. 

“We have a lot of people volunteering their time,” he said.

Mr Schultz said Lifeline Central Victoria and Mallee had much to be proud of, including the strength of the support it received from its community.

At its peak, the centre answered more than 2000 calls a month with about 100 volunteers. 

“This proved to be unsustainable – we did not have the staff and resources to continue to work at that level and had to reduce the number of volunteers and the number of shifts that were staffed,” Mr Schultz said. 

Financial considerations caused the centre to cut back on shifts in the past 18 months. 

Yet service delivery has increased by at least 1000 calls a year since 2010. 

In the 2005-6 financial year, Lifeline Central Victoria and Mallee answered 8455 calls. The centre’s cost-per-call – a function of the number of calls answered, and expenditure – was $16.59.

By the 2010-11 financial year, that figure had almost doubled. Volunteers answered 16,377 calls, with a cost-per-call of $11.53.

The most significant increase in calls answered happened in the 12 months from the 2008-09 financial year. 

In that time, volunteers attended to an additional 4107 calls – that means 15,104 calls answered by 2010. 

The 22,563 calls answered in 2014-15 were at a record low post-per-call of $8.66 – the Lifeline average is $30.

But Mr Schultz said the centre needed to invest in awareness raising, new technologies, more staff and volunteer training to evolve and save more lives.

“Bendigo is a stronger place because we have a Lifeline centre,” Mr Schultz said. 

“We train about 40 people each year in suicide prevention and crisis support and they are not only trained in that, they practice their skills in their work with Lifeline.”

Lifeline Central Victoria and Mallee eventually wants to expand its outreach to Mildura and Shepparton, the two biggest Victorian regional centres without a Lifeline centre. 

“We know a town with a Lifeline centre is at an advantage,” Mr Schultz said. 

For now, it aims to be more active in each of the 10 local government areas it already covers.

Alannah McGregor said bullying sparked the despair that caused two of her children to take their own lives. 

The Suicide Prevention Awareness Network (SPAN) spokeswoman will speak at a session about depression, anxiety and isolation in the workplace in Bendigo on Wednesday in the hope of helping others.

“I find it is a nice way to honour Angela and Stuart, but also, our story is so complex and there are so many parts of it that can be used as a learning tool,” she said.

Mrs McGregor said her son was bullied in his workplace, which led to a sudden and steep decline in his mental health.

“In the three-and-a-half years from when he was bullied to when he died it affected the whole family, to the point where his younger sister took her own life,” she said. 

“It’s that huge ripple affect – bullying affects not just the person being bullied, but the whole family.”

She said people needed to be able to recognise the signs of a decline in a person’s mental health and learn how to respond.

“If someone else can learn that, whether through me or with Lifeline, please let it happen,” she said.

The session is presented by Lifeline Central Victoria and Mallee with Michelle Forrester and Jenny Arnold from Bendigo Health and approaches the topic from a workplace perspective. 

How should a small business owner, manager, or colleague respond if they think an employee or colleague might be suffering mental health issues? 

What support does the organisation need to provide? What external support options are there? 

The session runs from 5.45pm to 7.15pm on May 18 at the Discovery Centre. 

Entry is by gold coin donation. Seats can be reserved on the Eventbrite website.

Mrs McGregor encouraged people to call Lifeline on 13 11 14 if they were in need of help.