Our theory of change
“We’re not saying we can solve suicide. But we can try to get to those young people earlier, and build another layer, a protective layer into that community.”
Founder, Live4Life Macedon Ranges
The Live4Life model places young people at its centre. It delivers targeted, evidence-based mental health education and peer-led health promotion activities to young people. It provides training to adults to ensure they have the skills and confidence to respond when needed most.
Live4Life is designed to drive generational change. By delivering successive interventions to all young people in a community, we increase the response capacity and prevalence of normalising attitudes and behaviours. This community-wide mental health literacy then expands through the generations over time, as the Live4Life model continues to be implemented year on year in the community.
The model’s evidence-based mental health education is targeted at year 8 and year 10 or 11 students. This reaches young people at two critical times in adolescence, and empowers them to recognise mental health issues in themselves and others, increasing their ability to act when they identify an issue.
A whole-community approach
The formal education component to students is reinforced through repeated and engaging messages delivered by Year 9 & 10 peers in the Live4Life Crew — young people in the community who volunteer as ambassadors for Live4Life. This peer-led approach, often co-ordinated across multiple schools, recognises the influence that peers have on Live4Life’s target cohorts, and celebrates the power of young people to create positive lasting change in their community.
Adjacent to this, adults who are engaged with young people (parents, teachers and others) undergo Mental Health First Aid® training. This increases their competence and confidence in their ability to respond appropriately and efficiently when faced with young people’s mental ill-health. Over time, the critical mass of Live4Life alumni (as well as these trained adults in the community) influences broader community attitudes and behaviours relating to mental illness, creating sustainable and long-lasting generational change.
Taken together, these components aim to ensure that young people who experience mental ill-health are referred to appropriate clinical supports. Further, where young people experience access issues and lengthy wait times to access supports in rural communities, Live4Life aims to better resource the community to support these young people in the interim.
Young people are protected by multiple layers of education and awareness within their local community
"Creates a sense of containment and hope”
Mental Health Worker, Benalla
Since Live4Life began, the model has been implemented in 14 rural and regional communities. Today the Live4Life team works alongside communities across Victoria and Tasmania: Glenelg and Southern Grampians in the south west, Benalla in the north of Victoria, Macedon Ranges, Hepburn, Central Goldfields and City of Ballarat in central Victoria, Baw Baw, South Gippsland, Latrobe Valley and Wellington Shires in the south east, and Break O’Day Shire in Tasmania.
Live4Life is a registered health promotion charity, and is generously supported by philanthropic organisations and government. We are also grateful for regular and one-off donations received from individuals and businesses and our Friends4Life.
