SuperFriend is a national mental health promotion foundation that partners with ‘all profit to member’ superannuation funds and their associated group life insurers to reduce the incidence of suicide and the impact of mental illness on individuals, employers and workplaces.

SuperFriend promotes and supports improved mental health and wellbeing for Partner Fund members, through the workplace by developing and delivering best-practice workplace mental health and wellbeing programs, system change through regulation, policy, and acquiring meaningful mental health data and insights.

Within Superfriend’s Partner Funds, staff including Client Relationship Managers (CRM) and Financial Planners (FP) may be closely involved in rural and remote communities, holding a trusted role with those experiencing financial distress.

SuperSPAN (Suicide Prevention Assistance Network) was developed to upskill and empower CRMs and FPs to support who may be at risk of suicide.

Working with expert consultant Susan Beaton, FarmLink, Rural Adversity Mental Health Program, and a suicide post-vention specialist, the program focused on the needs of rural communities and creating sustainable change in the minds and abilities of the participants.

The training included mental health literacy, discussing the Interpersonal Psychological Theory of Suicide^[1], and Motivational Volitional Model^[2]. A focus was the work of Dr Christabel Owens^[3] in prevention of suicide in non-clinical populations and settings, and the difficulties faced by relatives, friends, and colleagues in interpreting signs of suicidality and deciding on intervention.

The program was evaluated by the LOSS^[4] and SOSS^[5], however it was the individual feedback that proved the most powerful in identifying impact.

“The training has been fantastic in my life. The more you talk with people the more you find people are going through hardship. SuperSPAN has given me more confidence around the topic of mental health, and encouraging and supporting others”.

“A significant shift has happened over time after training; subtle thinking – I can reflect on things that happened in the past, I would I have asked differently, at that time”.

For more information contact SuperFriend at www.superspan.org.au