It’s sobering to think about suicide. Suicide has such an enormous impact on those around the person. There are many services that can help, yet it can also be very difficult to find the right support at a time of suicidal distress.
When we first learned about NSW Health’s Safe Havens, they seem like such a great idea. There are approximately 20 Safe Havens across NSW, each designed as an alternative to emergency departments when people are experiencing suicidal distress.
The Campbelltown and Liverpool Safe Havens are staffed by people with lived experience. Safe Havens provide a range of options for guests, including the offer of someone to talk to, a safe place to be quiet, advice about appropriate services and/or the option to develop a safety plan.
When we were engaged, the big challenge for South Western Sydney LHD was the very low levels of awareness – many people had not heard of Safe Haven and did not know anything about the service.
We applied a structured social marketing campaign framework throughout all key strategies of planning and development. Combining co-design stages and consultation with professionals and community groups, we worked to understand the best ways to get the message out. These consultations provided insights, and based on these insights we designed a creative concept that ‘shows what’s inside’.
This welcoming and authentic concept was then used in a comprehensive communications kit, including flyers, brochures, signage, digital out of home advertising, a landing page, videos, photography and social media. The campaign was launched and ran on paid media in mid-2023, followed by an ‘always on’ owned media strategy.
To measure impact and effectiveness, we used a range of metrics. We conducted pre- and post- evaluations (before and after the initial paid launch), using an independent online panel of respondents in the South Western Sydney local area (n=100 for each evaluation). This tracking showed an overall increase in prompted awareness from 12% to 22%, with awareness of Safe Haven Liverpool growing from 0% to 18%.
This campaign has been nominated as a national finalist in the 2024 Australian Marketing Institute Awards, Purpose-Led Marketing category.
