SPAN Walk returns to Central Geelong

A ONCE-OFF film screening highlighting the impact of suicide will be added to a Geelong-based suicide awareness network’s proceedings for World Suicide Prevention Day.

The Geelong-based Suicide Prevention Awareness Network (SPAN) will host its annual Suicide Awareness Walk this Sunday, providing an opportunity for residents to remember those lost to suicide.

SPAN Committee member Ben LeFevre said the walk is a positive and active family and community event where people can come together and pay tribute to lost loved ones.

“SPAN is excited to be hosting the walk again this year, the last couple of years being with COVID and what not,” Mr LeFevre said.

“It’s a very welcoming event for those who haven’t been before, and it was very good event we had last year, perhaps even a little bit overwhelming seeing so many people again.

“I know Barb [Kosic] and myself, we look at each other each year and say as the years go by it will get easier, but it remains just as a emotional when the circle is created and everyone’s hands are joined.”

The free event is welcome to all members of the community, but attendees are welcome to make a donation to support Hope Bereavement Care’s Support After Suicide service.

The service is delivered in partnership with Jesuit Social Services, which seeks to ensure no one in the Geelong region is left to grieve alone after being impacted by suicide.

 

 

Mr LeFevre said the Support After Suicide service not only provided support to him personally after losing a loved one, but also to 444 Geelong-based individuals and families during the 2022-23 financial year.

As a result, 942 individual suicide bereavement counselling sessions and 41 separate suicide bereavement support groups were provided to the community.

Following Sunday’s walk, Australian documentary film about the impact of suicide, This Man’s Worth, will be screened at the Pivotonian Cinema in South Geelong on Tuesday, September 12.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion about suicide featuring mental health advocate Tony McManus, This Man’s Worth filmmaker Ash Cottrell, one of the flm’s subjects John Patterson, bereaved mother Kim Edgar, Hope Bereavement Care counsellor Catharina Dumaresq and Craig Wood from the Let’s Talk Foundation.

The 2023 SPAN Suicide Awareness Walk will start at 9am on Sunday, September 10 at Johnstone Park in central Geelong.

The remembrance ceremony will be held before the walk itself.

For more information about both the walk and the screening head to bereavement.org.au, phone Hope Bereavement Care on (03) 4215 3358 or email [email protected]