Lifeline WA welcomes $1.8m funding boost to provide better support to wellbeing of frontline volunteers

Lifeline WA is preparing for an influx in calls from Australians facing a cost of living crisis in their households. The support service was thrown its own lifeline on Tuesday, announcing a $1.2 million commercial partnership aimed at helping it better support the agency’s existing volunteers. The funding will also help it boost volunteer numbers by almost 30 per cent to meet the anticipated accelerating demand. The four-year deal with mining giant Rio Tinto, announced on Tuesday, will allow Lifeline WA to provide more mental health support for its existing 540 volunteers, who provide 24/7 care by answering calls from Australians experiencing issues, such as loneliness, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts. Lifeline WA CEO Lorna MacGregor said the partnership would also help to the agency better retain and grow its volunteer base to meet a coming rise in-coming calls triggered by accelerating household costs, the fuel crisis and associated international events. “About 15 per cent of calls that we’re answering at the moment are dealing with financial crisis . . . we’re preparing for that, given the current oil shock and the impact that that’s going to have,” she said. “We forecast that by 2030 we will need more than 700 volunteer crisis supporters. “That means not only do we have to expand our workforce of volunteers, we also have to expand the framework of safety and support that ensures that being a crisis supporter at Lifeline WA is safe. “We’re doing all that we can to make volunteering easier . . . like developing our capability for work from home . . . to ensure that we’re there to meet that demand.” The Rio partnership will helping fund Lifeline’s dedicated internal crisis supporter wellbeing program, which Ms MacGregor said was important for the welfare of volunteers, given the emotional toll their role can have. Each volunteer commits to a minimum of four hours of unpaid shift work a fortnight, after completing a mandatory comprehensive training course. Over a shift, they listen to many heartbreaking situations. “To provide safe, effective, quality crisis intervention and suicide prevention, we must first protect the wellbeing of our crisis supporters, those frontline workers,” Ms MacGregor said. Former dentist Clive Moody, who has been a Lifeline volunteer for eight years, said the role came with incredible challenges. “What one has to be able to do is take a call, and then forget it. But that can be hard, and there will always be calls that can cause a trigger,” he said. “Every volunteer needs to feel safe and comfortable when they walk into the room. “That’s why it’s so important we’ve got the wellbeing program, so we know that support is there for us volunteers too.”