07/07/2021
March 18th 2022
Twilight Event 💃🏼🥂
Coatesville Hall
We are looking for nominations of grass roots 🌱charities who work in the Su***de Prevention space who have a plan that needs financial assistance 🙏🏻
Please PM Brigitte Knill with your suggestions
We’ve got this guys🖤
We can make a difference 🖤
Today I received a phone call from a doctor in New Zealand who had a suicidal teenager in their office. This teenager had expressed that they had a plan on how they would take their own life. This doctor called the crisis team in their area and was told “we can call them in the next 24 hours but we cant actually see them for another 9 months as that is how long the wait list it.”
Today, a teenage kid who was brave enough to say that they were having thoughts of su***de was told that there wasn’t help out there.
When I was filming The Girl on the Bridge 3-4 years ago I said “it is easier in this country to get pizza delivered to your house than it is to access a crisis worker when you are trying to kill yourself.” Our government, ministry of health and su***de prevention office tried to mute that and said that it was an inaccurate description of our mental health system. It’s 2021, and even with the flashy wellbeing budget announcement, our system remains the same.
You invested $1.9 billion into mental health - And while you HAVE made some changes - Your ministry have also changed reports, removed statistics, refused to listen to actual lived experience voices and got a gold star of “we are well on track.”
Here is my call to you Ministry of Health: Fund counsellors for every single school in New Zealand.
Invest in upskilling and training the mental health force and increase the budgets of crisis centres around New Zealand. Don’t say it’s not possible, I have seen many professionals offer to do this but they just don’t have the funding.
I am really careful with what I post online because I don’t want to defer people from asking fore help - So let me tell you this. There are some AMAZING people in our mental health workforce. People who are going above and beyond and literally carrying our country. There are community groups, church groups, charities and people who are picking up the slack and ensuring that no one is alone. So please, ask for help - You are worth it and while our system is broken, the people in our country are stronger.
Su***de prevention is everybody’s responsibility - But our country is doing their part, now you have to do yours.
