The drought, the fires, the floods and the virus: A $2 million 'Lifeline' for vulnerable people

NEWCASTLE'S 24-hour crisis support centre will soon provide video counselling to 16 communities across the eastern seaboard thanks to a $2 million funding boost to Lifeline Australia.

Demand for Lifeline's suicide prevention services has never been higher as communities in regional and rural areas have coped with drought, then bushfires, and now COVID-19.

"A lot of people are struggling," Robert Sams, the executive director of Lifeline Direct, said. "There has been much said about COVID and loneliness and isolation.

"And while we might be appearing to be on the back end of that, there is heaps of research that shows that communities exposed to consecutive trauma - drought, then bushfires, and now COVID - will need some support.

"These services are absolutely essential at the moment.

"Lifeline has been needed more than ever."

A "substantial amount" of the $2 million from NRMA Insurance and RACV would go towards supporting 10 full-time counsellors at Lifeline Newcastle as it becomes a centralised hub for video counselling services.

"The funding will be shared around a little bit, but a substantial amount will be coming to Newcastle to run the local service as well as coordinate online counselling across 16 different regions," Mr Sams said.

"We have been ahead of the curve in developing the video counselling technology - we had to move to online counselling very quickly in Newcastle - and we have a ready-made workforce there."

The funding would support more than 8000 counselling sessions for people in communities affected by drought, fires, floods and coronavirus. It would also help deliver "Accidental Counsellor" training for up to 3000 people in those areas.

Across Australia, Lifeline receives a call every 30 seconds. The number of calls it receives has risen from 2000 a day to 3000.

"When people have to start paying their full mortgages again, and the Jobkeeper subsidy has come to an end, that's the next big concern for us," Mr Sams said. "Our projections are that demand for our services will increase even from where they are today, and they are already high."

Ramana James, from NRMA Insurance, said they wanted to support communities as they recovered from the fires, floods, bushfires and COVID-19, while also taking into account the impact these challenges have had on people's mental health.

"We really want to support people as they come through the compounding disasters we have seen in the past 12 months," he said.

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