ONE of the area’s foremost counselling and support groups celebrated a special milestone last week.
Lifeline Mid Coast turned 25, celebrating the occasion with a cocktail party for 130 people at the Westport Club in Port Macquarie.
Lifeline Australia CEO Jane Hayden and other Lifeline staff and volunteers were joined by a host of special guests, including mayor Peter Besseling, para-Olympian Riley Batt and Lyne MP David Gillespie. The evening included a recap of Lifeline’s many achievements, after which guests mingled and enjoyed music from Heart Strings.
Lifeline Mid Coast began answering the Lifeline crisis line back in 1988, answering calls in the local 065 area code. The board of the day estimated they would answer around 1500 calls in their first year. Over the years that number has jumped to a massive 14,000 calls a year.
The op shops have played an important part in funding operations from the beginning, helping provide much needed funds to train volunteer counsellors and provide crisis support and suicide intervention services.
In 2007 the Mid Coast branch joined 42 other Lifeline centres around Australia to answer the new national Lifeline 13 11 14 crisis line service. This means as part of the national crisis service, Lifeline Mid Coast answer calls from all over Australia and volunteers have answered calls from as far away as Japan, the US and Serbia.
Lifeline is also a founding member of the Port Macquarie Hastings Suicide Prevention Network.
Lifeline Mid Coast CEO Catherine Vaara said Lifeline was a unique and brilliantly thought through organisation.
“Lifeline is now global with our ability to provide research-driven, web-based crisis support services,” she said.
“We are national, providing the telephone based 13 11 14 crisis support and suicide prevention service, which, too, is considered one of the best in the world.
“Yet we are truly local in the way we can hear and see what is going on in our little parts of the world. Because of this, we can respond locally, creating meaningful and relevant locally based support.
“Added to this, each and every volunteer trained in crisis support and suicide prevention brings these skills to where they live, work and play adding community based resilience wherever they are.”
