Unique to the Perth Northern suburbs, Yanchep captivates with its fusion of coastal allure and untouched wilderness.
Its pristine beaches, rugged coastline, and sprawling national park, with ancient caves and native wildlife, define its uniqueness.
Yet, it's not just nature's haven; Yanchep thrives as a growing community, blending coastal serenity with modern living.
In Yanchep, urban convenience meets untouched beauty, offering a lifestyle like no other.
Yanchep's history traces back to its indigenous roots, with the area inhabited by Noongar Aboriginal people for thousands of years.
The name 'Yanchep' was adapted from the Noongar word "Yandjip", or "Yandjet", which is their name for the bullrush reed that is common in the wetlands of the area.
Yanchep was also well noted for hunting among Noongar people.
The construction of Yanchep National Park in the 1970s further cemented Yanchep's identity as a natural haven.
Despite the idyllic nature of Yanchep and its surrounding area, the community has been through difficult times with young people experiencing domestic and family violence, vehicle related death and suicide loss.
Although the demographic indices of the community are not comparable to other areas of socioeconomic risk, the community has been impacted by the nature and frequency of related mortality. Most notably, the purposes of telling the story of Yanchep in this instance will focus on the collaborated effort of a postvention response in relation to the death of a young person by suspected suicide.
"Suicide is a reaction to overwhelming feelings of loneliness, worthlessness, helplessness, hopelessness and depression. It occurs when a person’s pain exceeds their resources to cope." Kerkhof & Diekstra (1995)
Postvention support refers to activities and strategies (interventions) implemented after the tragic event of a death by suicide. It is defined as “intervention efforts for individuals bereaved or impacted by suicide are implemented to support the grieving process and reduce the possibility of imitative suicidal behavior. These interventions may comprise of school-based, family focused or community-based postvention initiatives.
Although more research is needed to determine the effectiveness of ‘active outreach postvention interventions’, recent evidence suggests that active outreach to people impacted by suicide, as opposed to passive postvention approaches that require self-help seeking efforts, may have important psychological and psychosocial benefits.
Such benefits are increased engagement in bereavement counselling and reduced suicidal ideation.
"Moreover, people who receive active postvention outreach are more likely to receive support sooner than those who do not."
Hill et al, 2020
Recent notification and Responses
The details of this notification and response are sensitive information and as such, personal information has been deidentified.
A notification of a suspected suicide death of a student of a school in Yanchep had been received and investigated by the WA Police in early 2024.
Accordingly, communication response protocols were activated by the Department of Education Service Response Statewide Services team, which included contacting the Principal of the school, the lead school psychologist in the area, and notifying other stakeholder services in the metro region that are aligned to supporting schools in these responses.
At the time of the notification, term 1 of the 2024 school year had not begun, as such, the wider spread of information surrounding the death of the young person had not been as widely circulated, compared to if it had happened in school term.
Due to the school term yet to begin for the 2024 year, the school Principal was required to return to work early in order to arrange the necessary response protocols of the school, which had been activated on previous occasions of a similar nature.
Understandably, the limitations of identifying students who may or may not be impacted by the death was difficult due to the school term yet to begin.
Initial conversations were had between the school's leadership team and the lead school psychologist about next steps and how to best support the friends, family and wider student population.
Concurrently, as the communication response protocols were being circulated by the Department of Education to their priority stakeholders, the notification of the suspected suicide was sent to the Metro Postvention Coordinators at AnglicareWA.
This being part of a Memorandum of Understanding signed between WA Police and AnglicareWA.
The responsibility of the Metro Postvention Coordinators is to activate the Metro Postvention Response Group (MPVRG) to support the Department of Education and school response towards achieving coordinated, holistic community support which;
- Encourages healing,
- Reduces isolation,
- Destigmatises suicide and
- Promotes awareness of support systems within the community.
Upon activation of the MPVRG, key stakeholder organisations were drawn together with a practical focus to provide coordinated clinical, practical and holistic support following the suspected suicide.
The MPVRG offers expertise, support and local knowledge to provide critical postvention supports to those bereaved, impacted by or exposed to suicide, including links to holistic community support, in a timely manner.
The discussion of the MPVRG meeting is to identify actionable steps that each stakeholder organisation can contribute to support individuals, families and the wider community that may be bereaved or impacted by the loss.
Within this specific response it was identified that the school would need additional support from counselling professionals and community organisations that could be present on school grounds to hold space and have conversations with students that may be impacted.
- Youth Focus,
- AnglicareWA's CYPRESS service,
- headspace Joondalup,
- CAMHS Clarkson
- StandBy Support After Suicide
- Department of Education Lead School Psychologist
- School Wellbeing Team
all offered support by way of support staff to be available and present as the school determined the need.
As each organisation offered actionable support, the exploration of wider impacts following the "Circles of Vulnerability" model enabled exploration of how others may be connected, impacted and/ or bereaved of the loss.
Students in other schools in close proximity were identified as being potentially impacted and plans were made for stakeholder organisations to reach out in support.
The workplace of the deceased was identified as being a priority connection to support and the local gym the deceased attended was highlighted as being necessary to reach out and offer support.
CAMHS Clarkson were additionally able to identify that previous service users that had mental health difficulties were current students at the school and plans were made for support to be offered and an increase in monitoring of their overall wellbeing.
Immediate family, friends and those with close connections to the deceased were identified through conversations with the WAPOL Joondalup District Engagement Manager, alongside Stand By Support After Suicide.
As demonstrated in the picture, the concentric circles of impact throughout various interpersonal, social and educational settings as a result of the death and the need for open interagency collaboration has clearly resulted in greater overall support outcomes for the family, friends, school and wider community.
A follow up meeting of the MPVRG was arranged to provide time for response member delegates to action the tasks and report back on additional needs of the various elements of the response.
Through further discussion of the response group members in a follow up meeting, a wider community consultation around suicide prevention was found to be a matter of priority. Engaging with the Suicide Prevention Coordinator through Neami National, with additional support from the Community Liaison Officer from Derbarl Yerrigan, future plans for what this could look like are being explored.
Further involvement with the City of Wanneroo and local member of parliament are vital connection points to increase the profile of support needing to be provided to the Yanchep community in an effort to prevent future suicide harm to families and the community.