The effects of a suicide echo through a family for decades. There’s always an empty space. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way.  Effective interventions do work.  

The problem is, how do you recognise the warning signs? And what do you do, that won’t make the situation worse, or drive the person away?

If you’re a business or it’s a co-worker, how should you handle it?

Practical, evidence-based advice can help people be effective in getting potential suicides to help, before it’s too late.

AMHF, the Australian Men’s Health Forum, produces important advisory papers for community use.

Their next project is to research and produce an advisory paper on preventing male suicide.

The advisory paper is expected to be a practical help to families, friends and employers and will be distributed free of charge.

Four out of five suicides are by men, but this project is not just about men: AMHF recognises the key role that wives, daughters and all women play in reaching out to men, to draw them back from isolation and assist them towards help. There’s a role for businesses and other organisations too.

We need $8,000 to fund the research, writing, production and dissemination of the advisory paper.

It’s not such a big amount of money, but it will make a really big difference.  

The money raised will pay for a professional in the area to research and write the advisory paper, and for production and dissemination of the finished paper.

Any over-target funds will be applied to the next paper.

All the elements needed to produce this paper are in place and we have already done one advisory paper, Male health in Australia: a call to action. You can download it from http://www.amhf.org.au/booksamhf

The only real challenge we see is raising the money to get this information out.