Youth suicide funding announced
The Baillieu Government has today announced the recipients of a $4 million funding grant promised to tackle suicide and self harm among LGBTI youth.
Seven community organisations from around the state will receive funding, including the WayOut Project, Safe Schools Coalition Victoria (SSCV), the Rainbow Network, Minus18, the Zoe Belle Gender Centre, Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria (GLHV) and the Youth Affairs Council of Victoria.
Mental Health Minister Mary Wooldridge said the funding aims to support LGBTI youth in both regional and metropolitan areas and help boost existing services currently dealing with the issues.
“The funding will support new initiatives, as well as enhance ongoing, well-evaluated programs that have a track record of working with GLBTI young people,” Wooldridge said.
”Research suggests that GLBTI young people can be at higher risk of anxiety, depression, self harm and drug and alcohol misuse, as a result of discrimination and abuse.
“As a result, suicide attempt and self-harm rates among GLBTI communities are significantly higher than among non-GLBTI populations.”
The WayOut Project, working in rural Victoria, will receive $1.48 million, SSCV will receive $416,000, Minus18 will be given a boost of $146,000, Rainbow Network will receive $348,000, Zoe Belle Gender Centre will receive $146,000, and GLHV and the Youth Affairs Council has been allocated $440,000.
As part of the funding, $220,000 will be set aside to evaluate the impacts of the initiative.
A further $762,000 will also be allocated to support grassroots LGBTI youth programs run in local communities. The funding will be coordinated by the Youth Affairs Council of Victoria and a number of small grant rounds will be available over the next three years.
“The GLBTI sector has been an active partner in the development of this framework and I look forward to working with them to improve mental health outcomes for GLBTI young people,” Wooldridge said.
Prahan MP Clem Newton-Brown will appear on Melbourne LGBTI radio station JOY94.9 at noon to discuss the announcement.
I think it is fantastic that there is an increase to funding but discrimination protections and suicide prevention is intimately linked. In Australia, in NSW at least, with poor anti-discrimination protections, no human rights recourse against state human rights abuses by health services and the police, no apology from the governments regarding arrests and detention of GLBTI individuals in Pentridge prison and NSW prisons and limited access to locally based human rights options, it seems like the government is unaware that as the Ottowa report states, mental health and well being is intimately connected to access to justice and equality.
We demand more. Law Reform, independant police integrity bodies to investigate homophobic and transphobic crimes, a new charter for equality, and a lot more.
Money is a start.
[…] As announced by Mental Health Minister Mary Wooldridge last Friday, ZBGC was one of seven community organisations awarded funding as part of a $4.5 million package for the GLBTI community. ZBGC will receive non-recurrent funding of $146,000 over 4 years. The funding will enable ZBGC to assist health service providers in reducing suicide and self-harm rates among young gender diverse and gender questioning people. […]
How absurd the Liberal National Party would help kids up onto a bridge, then say do not jump, we just do not like you!
These idiots just stripped protections in the Victorian Equal Opportunity Act, that will be measured in the increaes in suicides.
I have to ask Mental Health Minister Mary Wooldridge, were all those kids you sent to an early grave worth your act of hate?
How many court cases, ambulances, coronors cases, police investigations, and children dead, will it take for Mental Minister Mary Wooldrige to be satisfied that being Same-Sex attracted, should not be used as an excuse to exclude people from thousands of government jobs? A thousand?
This mental health funding simply does not cover cost of the Liberal Party hate.They are a party of the absurd and stupid.
I am getting sick of the extra taxes we have to pay as the Liberal/National Party say to kids, like Robert Clark, the Attorney General did “Homosexuality is a sick disease”.
Excellent news!
A good bunch of community organisations.