BackgroundSuicide is a leading cause of death among Indigenous Australians. Friends, family and frontline workers (for example, teachers, youth workers) are often best positioned to provide initial assistance if someone is suicidal. Culturally appropriate expert consensus guidelines on how to provide mental health first aid to Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons who are experiencing suicidal thoughts or behaviour were developed in 2009. This study describes the re-development of these guidelines to ensure they contain the most current recommended helping actions.MethodsThe Delphi consensus method was used to elicit consensus on potential helping statements to be included in the guidelines. These statements describe helping actions that Indigenous community members and non-Indigenous frontline workers can take, and information they should have, to help someone who is experiencing suicidal thoughts or displaying suicidal behaviour. A panel was formed, comprising 27 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have expertise in Indigenous suicide prevention. The panellists were presented with the helping statements via online questionnaires and were encouraged to suggest re-wording of statements and any additional helping statements that were not included in the original questionnaire. Statements were only accepted for inclusion in the guidelines if they were endorsed by ≥90% of panellists as essential or important.ResultsFrom a total of 301 statements shown to the expert panel, 172 were endorsed as helping statements to be including in the re-developed guidelines.ConclusionsAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander suicide prevention experts were able to reach consensus on appropriate strategies for providing mental health first aid to an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person experiencing suicidal thoughts or behaviour. The re-development of the guidelines has resulted in more comprehensive guidance than the earlier version, for which the panel had rated 166 helping statements and had endorsed 52. These re-developed guidelines can be used to inform Indigenous suicide gatekeeper training courses.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12888-018-1809-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
BackgroundNon-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) disproportionally affects Indigenous Australians. Friends, family and frontline workers (for example, teachers, youth workers) are often best positioned to provide initial assistance if someone is engaging in NSSI. Culturally appropriate expert consensus guidelines on how to provide mental health first aid to Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who are engaging in NSSI were developed in 2009. This study describes the re-development of these guidelines to ensure they contain the most current recommended helping actions.MethodsThe Delphi consensus method was used to elicit consensus on potential helping statements to be included in the guidelines. These statements describe helping actions that Indigenous community members and non-Indigenous frontline workers can take, and information they should have, to help someone who is engaging in NSSI. The statements were sourced from systematic searches of peer-reviewed literature, grey literature, books, websites and online materials, and existing NSSI courses. A panel was formed, comprising 26 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders with expertise in NSSI. The panellists were presented with the helping statements via online questionnaires and were encouraged to suggest re-wording of statements and any additional helping statements that were not included in the original questionnaire. Statements were only accepted for inclusion in the guidelines if they were endorsed by ≥90% of panellists as essential or important.ResultsFrom a total of 185 statements shown to the expert panel, 115 were endorsed as helping statements to be included in the re-developed guidelines.ConclusionsA panel of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with expertise in NSSI were able to reach consensus on appropriate strategies for providing mental health first aid to an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander engaging in NSSI. The re-development of the guidelines has resulted in more comprehensive guidance than the earlier version. The re-developed guidelines will form the basis of an Aboriginal mental health first aid short course on NSSI for Indigenous community members and non-Indigenous frontline workers that will be evaluated in an upcoming trial.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12888-017-1465-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Stephane Shepherd and Benjamin Spivak in their article ‘Estimating the extent and nature of offending by Sudanese-born individuals in Victoria’, published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, suggest that recent patterns of alleged offending among South Sudanese young people “may be more reflective of an increased involvement in crime for a small number of young men, rather than systemic policing bias or the natural consequence of a group’s demographics” (Shepherd & Spivak, 2020, p. 364). In this article, we interrogate the research methodology and findings of Shepherd and Spivak’s (2020) study. We argue that among the crucial flaws of the article is the substantive lack of interrogation of crime statistics on alleged offending and the article’s failure to triangulate this data with the diverse perspectives and voices of South Sudanese people themselves.
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