Each month, a member of the SNDYS team has the opportunity to select a charity that holds personal significance to them. For every sale made during that month, we proudly contribute $1 to the chosen cause, extending our impact beyond fashion.
This month, Jaz, our Warehouse Assistant, has selected Roses in the Ocean as her charity of choice as it holds a special place in her heart.
Roses in the Ocean was established because at the time, the word suicide was barely spoken, finding helpful help was near impossible and it was obvious that the people who knew what it was like to experience suicidal thoughts, make an attempt on their life, desperately try to help someone they love stay alive and those who were navigating loss through suicide, had no voice.
They were not the people designing or delivering services, they were not the people who were advising governments on suicide prevention reform . . . and they needed to be. They set out to change that.
We asked Bronwen Edwards, Roses in the Ocean CEO to share some insight into the charity and how they help people affected by suicide.
Can you tell us about the core mission of your Roses in the Ocean?
Roses in the Ocean exists to save lives and reduce emotional distress and pain. Our vision is for every person to have access to effective suicide prevention that is informed or led by people with
At our heart and soul are people with a lived experience of suicide. We are dedicated to empowering those with a lived experience to find their voice, and to build their capacity to bring their insights and wisdom to suicide prevention.
We seek to lead the significant cultural shift needed to save lives through harnessing the perspectives of all we represent, along with our own lived experience of suicide. With our actions driven and guided by those with a lived experience of suicide, we innovate and transform suicide prevention, and drive and deliver system reform. We support organisations and government to effectively and meaningfully integrate lived experience expertise into suicide prevention.
How has its mission evolved over time?
Roses in the Ocean has always kept at our core people with lived experience of suicide, building capacity and capability to contribute to suicide prevention, amplifying their voices/stories, and connecting them to opportunities to influence system reform depending upon their other skills and particular areas of passion for change. In parallel to this work, we have always worked to influence system reform through developing strong relationships with government and advocating for changed informed by people with lived experience of suicide.
Over the years Roses in the Ocean has expanded our work to include the co-design of services, establishment and implementation of non-clinical peer led services (Community-led Safe Spaces, a National Peer CARE Companion Warmline, and Peer CARE Companion in Community).
How does your organisation approach raising awareness about mental health and suicide prevention?
We are a national organisation that has until recently been focused on building capacity of people with lived experience of suicide to contribute to suicide prevention in a way that was purposeful for them, and to drive system reform. Many of the people who we have trained then go on to become speakers or run community events themselves to raise awareness.
Roses in the ocean host numerous world suicide prevention day events in September also raising people's awareness of the need to reach in to support people who may be going through tough times and being very aware of how to find appropriate support.
We also deliver training into community to help people recognise and respond to someone in distress, and we support diverse communities to explore how they might lead that type of work within their own community.
Can you share some success stories or examples of how your work has made a significant impact on someone's life?
It's incredibly difficult to just highlight individual stories but there are certainly many people who have been trained and supported by rose in the ocean over the years who have told us that the connection with us has done a range of things from saving their life to creating opportunities for them to make purpose of what they've been through to actually starting to work in the suicide prevention space.
Non clinical peer lead services are impacting people’s lives every day as we provide alternative supports to the traditional an agency department's and medical models, providing safe places for people to connect with others who've worked in similar shoes and feel very deeply listened to and validated, and then connected with whatever supported is that they deemed to be necessary to help them with the distress of their experiencing.
Our work and our resource is are also used widely across Australia and also internationally helping governments and organisations have a much more lived experience informed way of working, a better understanding of what suicide actually is that then influences the way in which they're providing support.
