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university support program
What is the University Support Program?
The University Support Program is funded by the Australian Government to provide mental health and suicide postvention guidance to all Australian universities and their staff at no cost. Select what you’re interested in:
Online workshops
Available to all staff and roles at Australian universities, online workshops are delivered via Microsoft Teams at no cost. View the full schedule on Eventbrite.
Equipping University Staff: Tools For Suicide Recovery and Prevention – 90 minutes
This workshop focuses on the recovery phase of postvention, to support all staff to engage in activities to build mentally healthy universities following a suicide. This session is appropriate regardless of whether your university has been impacted by a suicide previously.
Responding To Suicide: A Toolkit to Support Australian Universities - 90 minutes
This workshop focuses on the planning and response phases of postvention activities following a suicide, including guiding principles of postvention and immediate responses. This session is appropriate for anyone who may be involved in postvention within a university, especially those in leadership roles.
Real Talk: A Conversational Approach to Supporting University Students And Staff - 60 minutes
This workshop aims to build the capacity of all university staff to engage in safe, relevant conversations around mental health. This session brings the Real Talk framework to life by introducing the NIP it in the Bud framework: what to Notice, how to Inquire and what supports to Provide someone experiencing mental health difficulties.
Applying Real Talk in Your University: An Interactive Workshop – 120 minutes
This interactive workshop builds on the knowledge and skills introduced in the ‘Real Talk: A Conversational Approach to Supporting University Students and Staff’ workshop above. Attendees will practice engaging in conversations and offering a variety of supports relevant to individuals at your university. Attending the ‘Real Talk: A Conversational Approach’ workshop beforehand is preferable but not essential.
Bespoke and in-person workshops
We encourage universities to contact us to arrange bespoke workshops at no cost to your university. Workshops can be tailored to best suit the needs of your group, including blending or hybridisation of topics, inclusion of context-specific supports, and cofacilitation with internal university staff. Our workshops can also be modified to align with existing mental health and wellbeing initiatives at your university, or tailored to the needs of specific staff cohorts (e.g. individual faculties, placement supervisors, etc).
Suicide postvention response & support
If your university is impacted by a suspected suicide death, the University Support Program team can provide immediate and ongoing consultation and support to activate your response. Our consultants work with you to apply the postvention and recovery evidence base to the specific context of your university community, including in relation to:
- Mapping and minimising exposure
- Planning safe communications
- Responding to media enquiries
- Connecting with external service providers
- Working with the bereaved family
- The needs of vulnerable or at-risk individuals and groups
- Planning for key recovery milestones
This support is available online and by phone. On-site support may be available depending on your circumstances and our team’s capacity. This support is fully funded by the Australian Government and is available at no cost to your university.
To access this support, contact the University Support Program Clinical Lead on 0447 927 659.
Policy & framework review
The University Support Program team can provide consultation on your university’s policy and frameworks. Our team provide evidence-based consultation and recommendations to universities for policies and frameworks that are relevant to mental health promotion, suicide prevention and suicide response.
This service is available at no cost to your university. For more information, reach out to the team:
Executive briefing
Looking for additional information on the University Support Program, or need to bring your executive leaders on the journey? A University Support Program executive briefing provides executive leaders with a high-level overview of suicide postvention theory and why developing a plan is an important risk mitigation strategy for all universities.
We will work with you to identify key priorities that can be covered within the timeframe you have available, from 30 minutes to 1 hour.
To arrange an executive briefing for your university, reach out to the team:
The impact of the University Support Program
Tertiary students experience poorer mental health than the general population. Academic demands, living away from home and support networks, and financial stress can all affect mental health. International students may also face language and cultural challenges. We also know that many university staff experience high work pressure and emotional exhaustion.
The University Support Program is entirely funded by the Australian Government and helps:
- Build the capacity of staff to better support the mental health and wellbeing of their students and colleagues.
- Increase staff confidence and skills to engage in conversations about mental health and wellbeing – particularly when they are concerned about an individual student, or colleague.
- Staff feel better equipped to respond to the suicide of a student, in a way that promotes help-seeking and reduces risk for the community.
- Strengthen the mental health support available to students by increasing staff awareness of the appropriate local, state and national support services.
Frequently asked questions
The University Support Program is funded to work with university staff, so our team are not able to offer workshops to students. However, you can get in contact with your local headspace centre to discuss options.
Students aged 25 and under can also directly access mental health and work or study support online, over the phone and in-person by exploring the services that headspace offers.
A suicide postvention plan is a document outlining actions and responsibilities to be taken when coordinating a university’s response to a suicide impacting their community. This plan fits alongside existing policy and procedural frameworks for responding to other critical incidents, but is nuanced for the specific considerations required when responding to suicide.
Reach out for support to develop a plan that is bespoke to your setting via universitysupport@headspace.org.au
Our team members are always happy to provide further information and answer any questions you might have.
Reach out to universitysupport@headspace.org.au
Privacy Statement
headspace is committed to ensuring that the personal information you provide to us remains secure, is only used for the purposes for which it is collected and that you are aware of what information is held and your rights. View the full headspace University Support program privacy statement.
The headspace University Support Program has received grant funding from the Australian Government under its National Suicide Prevention Leadership and Support Program.