Live4Life

Live4Life is a registered health promotion charity, based in Woodend in Victoria. Live4Life brings together rural and regional communities to improve youth mental health and wellbeing and reduce suicide.

We do this by empowering communities to implement the Live4Life model. Ground-breaking and award-winning, Live4Life is evidence-based and evaluated — the only youth mental health education and suicide prevention model designed specifically for rural and regional communities, where the suicide rate is 40% higher than urban areas and where 63% of young people are unable to access mental health services (Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, Interim Report, 2018–19).

Live4Life communities deliver accredited Teen and Youth Mental Health First Aid^® training in schools and the wider community, create local partnerships to lead conversations about mental health which reduce stigma, and also promote young leaders as Mental Health Ambassadors.

Our immediate objective is to improve mental health for young people and reduce suicide in rural communities by:

• removing barriers that prevent young people from seeking help
• decreasing mental health stigma
• increasing awareness of local professional help
• improving the mental health knowledge of secondary school-aged students, teachers, parents, carers and community members
• building community resilience in addressing mental ill-health

Our long-term goal is to empower all rural communities across Australia to support, improve and invest in young people’s mental health and reduce youth suicide.