Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today, again, I rise to not only highlight the scourge that is youth suicide in Tasmania, but to focus on the efforts of one particularly amazing woman from Northern Tasmania, who has dedicated herself to seeing change.

When Amanda Johnstone from George Town lost a number of friends in short succession to suicide a few years ago, she was understandably devastated. Sadly, in a state that has the highest rate of youth suicide in Australia her experience was far from unique. Determined to reach out to her friends in any way that she could in order to gauge just how everyone was really feeling, Amanda began a group daily check-in on the phone. Every day at 4 pm, each member of the group would rate their own mental wellbeing from one to 10 and send the response to the entire group. This approach soon took off and, seeing the need for this method to be rolled out to the wider community, Amanda launched the free Be A Looper app in 2017, enabling people to check in with five friends daily and grade their mental wellbeing. As Amanda stated, 'We're all on our phones all the time, so it made sense to create something that's already in people's hands.' Amanda's innovative approach recently earned her a place on Time magazine's 2019 Next Generation Leaders list.

Mental health is complex, layered and the responses should be too. I applaud Amanda for helping to save lives.

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