Like all journeys, there is a reason or a purpose for the journey. Our purpose was to address the unusually high rate of suicide amongst a rural community which, not unlike, other communities had been undergoing many social changes over the past 20 years. It was through this sense of actually wanting to do something about the suicide rate, that this community banded together to take positive action in reducing the suicide rate.

The journey began with a widely representative group of professionals from the community who met in mid 2000 to discuss the poor state of health services available for residents of the Kentish Municipality in Tasmania (population of 5,500 people in an area of over 1,100 square kilometers).  A group was formed, called the Health Investigation Committee of Kentish or the HICK Committee for short.  In May 2001 HICK commissioned a consultancy company (ERS Consultancies) to undertake a health needs assessment of Kentish with funds from the Rural Health department of the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care.

The research confirmed what the HICK committee had believed – that the Kentish Municipality was  an area of extreme socio-economic disadvantage: that it was one of the most disadvantaged Municipalities in Tasmania.

It was from this report that Tandara Lodge Kentish Health Centre was formed with funding from the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing:

What also came from the report was what many local people knew,  that was the suicides which had occurred between 1996 to 2001 had  touched the community in one way or another. We also knew that before 1996 there have been suicides in the community but this was not confirmed by the statistical evidence, and that several suicides outside the municipality have had direct effect on the Kentish community.

Extract from Health Needs Assessment (page 21)
Suicides

Given the highly developed networks and social inter relatedness of the Kentish community the suicides from 1999 onwards have had an impact far greater than might be expected.

With this in mind Tandara Lodge Kentish Health Centre set out to address the suicide problem in a positive manner.

Our first funding submission to the National Suicide Prevention Strategy in April 2002 was unsuccessful, however we were not about to give up and a second submission was sent to the Tasmanian Community Fund in August 2002, with funding being granted on 11th November 2002. We were about to begin what would prove a journey of discovery and a successful one.

It is therefore important when you read this journey to realize that it is about people who have been directed affected by suicide as many small rural communities are and it is through being affected that this community reaches out to other communities and offers them the chance to heal in the same way.