Live4Life is a registered health promotion charity, empowering rural communities to implement the Live4Life model.
Live4Life empowers rural communities to support, improve and invest in young people’s mental health and wellbeing through the implementation of the Live4Life model.
The Live4Life youth suicide prevention and mental health education model was first conceived and developed in the Macedon Ranges in 2010. It was a decisive response to a reported increase in anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide amongst young people in the the shire, and a groundbreaking approach which centred young people themselves in a prevention strategy. For the first time ever it brought a broad range of community organisations together to support the mental health of the young people in their community.
After five years programmatic evaluation of the model, the organisation Youth Live4Life Ltd was established in 2015 to independently facilitate and govern its expansion to other rural and regional communities with similar needs.
In 2017, the Live4Life model was piloted in the Rural City of Benalla and in Glenelg Shire (in south west Victoria). A 12 month evaluation conducted by Orygen, and a two year Victorian Government-funded evaluation demonstrated the model’s proof of concept, impact, transferability and social return on investment.
The Live4Life model has since been implemented in thirteen, diverse rural communities across Victoria. In 2024, thanks to support from the Federal Government’s National Suicide Prevention Leadership and Support Program, the program was successfully piloted outside Victoria for the first time — in the Tasmanian north east coastal shire of Break O’Day. Today, there are over twenty more rural communities keen to implement the model.
Live4Life has been independently evaluated.
Findings highlight the value of a whole-community response to youth mental health, its impact and social return on investment, a clear proof of concept and the transferability of the model. Evaluation reports can be found here.
An award-winning model
In 2018 Youth Live4Life won VicHealth’s Improving Mental Wellbeing Award and the Youth Affairs Council of Victoria’s Rural Award for Most Innovative Rural Youth Program.
In 2017, Macedon Ranges Live4Life was awarded the national LiFE Award in Community Development (Organisation) at the National Suicide Prevention Conference for its groundbreaking work.
In 2020, Youth Live4Life and the Live4Life communities of Glenelg, Benalla and Macedon Ranges received a High Commendation at the 2020 Local Government Pro-Awards.
