Social Media and Suicide Prevention

In this course, Dr. Jo Robinson, Professor of Psychology at Orygen Centre for Youth Mental Health, University of Melbourne, cites disturbing statistics regarding the rising rates of suicide and self-harm among young people and shares a social media campaign that she and her associates successfully ran to help people (especially young people) communicate safely about suicide. The Chatsafe guidelines were originally introduced in 2017, but – given their placement on a health service website – were largely inaccessible to the young people they desired to reach. The Chatsafe#2 guidelines, developed in collaboration with young people, have been developed to run on social media. Initial research shows that they have been successful in achieving their aims of making communication about suicide safer.