Push for ‘army’ of Indigenous psychologists to curb youth suicide in WA

Tracy Westerman is aiming to single-handedly do what no government has by creating an “army of Indigenous psychologists” in the hope of curbing soaring rates of suicide in Aboriginal communities.

The WA Indigenous psychologist is mentoring and financially supporting about 30 Indigenous psychology students through scholarships via her charity, The Westerman Jilya Institute for Indigenous Mental Health.

Western Australia Indigenous psychologist Dr Tracy Westerman.

More than 10 of those scholarships will be made possible by proceeds raised at the Jilya World Suicide Prevention Day fundraising concert with performances by acts including John Butler and Indigenous artists including Gina Williams and Guy Chouse on Friday at UWA’s Winthrop Hall.

The students from across the country are trained in clinical and cultural best practice response to the needs of at-risk Aboriginal communities to arm them with the tools needed before returning home in coming years to provide psychological support to their own populace.

As the “chief of army” in the war against rising suicide within Indigenous communities, Dr Westerman took matters into her own hands in 2018 after two inquiries and two inquests led to plenty of recommendations, most of which are yet to be fully implemented.

The latest inquest, by coroner Ros Fogliani in 2018, was into the suicides of 13 children and young people aged between 10 and 23 years old in the Kimberley from 2012 to 2016.

Ms Fogliani described the deaths as “profoundly tragic”, with many of the children from intergenerational trauma and poverty.

She said the inquest, with 42 recommendations, laid bare the deep inequalities in remote communities, and changes would require a “significant shift in policy”.

Dr Westerman said the Jilya Indigenous psychology students were the future in the field, “going into high-risk communities and doing the heavy lifting.”

“Four of our students are from the Kimberley which means they will all be going back there as fully trained psychologists in a few years - that’s more than the government has achieved in decades of the Kimberley having the highest rates of child suicide in the country,” she said.

“The idea was to build an army of Indigenous psychologists into our most vulnerable at risk Indigenous communities.”

Dr Tracy Westerman

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are six times more likely to suicide than non-Indigenous children; 40 per cent of Indigenous children that die do so by taking their own lives, according to Dr Westerman.

WA has the highest Indigenous suicide rate in Australia followed by the Northern Territory and Queensland.

“We have the highest rates of youth suicide in the world in our Indigenous communities,” Dr Westerman said.

“It makes me feel physically sick when I read these statistics. When you look into the eyes of the family left bereaved by suicide of a child – it’s something that never leaves you.”

Dr Westerman, who has more than 20 years of clinical experience, said the Fogliani inquiry and other probes came to the same conclusion: that Aboriginal children died as a result of system failure.

“Which essentially means a lack of access to culturally and clinically appropriate services,” she said.

“So I picked up the phone and started the Dr Tracy Westerman Indigenous Psychology Scholarship Program in 2019 with the idea to ensure our highest risk remote communities have access to the services every Australian has or would like to have.

“The idea was to build an army of Indigenous psychologists into our most vulnerable at risk Indigenous communities.”

The program, which Dr Westerman started with $50,000 of her own money, quickly grew to offer national mentorship through the Jilya Institute, which has raised about $800,000 in ongoing commitments.

A Lotterywest grant to Jilya will be used to ensure programs are required to demonstrate reduction in suicide and mental health risk through assessment of outcomes, something currently not required.

“Governments have yet to determine suicide causal pathways for Indigenous people which fundamentally answers the ‘why’ for Indigenous families,” Dr Westerman said.

“Without understanding causes, everything we are able to do from a prevention perspective is compromised.

“We know in our research that Indigenous suicides look different - they are heavily trauma-related, they are much quicker and tend to be more impulsive and reactive to interpersonal conflict.

“Determining the ‘why’ then tells us what to do about it, and it informs treatment of best practice to address causes.”

Dr Westerman said the principle of determining causal pathways is to eliminate a cause, and when that’s done you eliminate the end result - in this case, suicides.

“People power is getting this done and our message is ‘hope has an amazing way of re-defining history’ and this concert is really about showing just that,” she said.

In the latest budget released in May, the federal government pledged $79 million to develop culturally sensitive services by Indigenous organisations, including a 24/7 crisis hotline.

It also allocated $8.3 million towards scholarships for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people wanting to join the mental health workforce, bringing the total spend on Indigenous-focused mental health support up to almost $90 million.

The budget’s total spend on mental health was also increased from $5.7 billion in 2020-21 to $6.3 in 2021-22.

Crisis support is available from Lifeline on 13 11 14, Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, and Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800

with Marta Pascual Juanola