Mother's search for help before son's suicide sparks call for change

Warning: This story contains references to suicide and self-harm.

In the years between her son Felix's first attempt at taking his own life at the age of 12 and his suicide last year, Darwin mother Gertrude Jane-Knight says she tried everything to help him.

"I was reaching out to everyone — 'Help me, what do I do?' — and constantly I was being told, 'you don't know what you're talking about, there is nothing wrong with your son'," Ms Jane-Knight said.

But, tragically, she was right.

"My son passed away on the 3rd of November," she said.

"This year would've been Felix's 17th birthday."

This week, Felix's friends and family walked together in his memory, describing his as a "beautiful, energetic, lively, creative, hilarious human being".

 "[His friends] have suffered terribly from what's happened and they all say to me, 'We miss him so much'," Ms Jane-Knight said.

Ms Jane-Knight was one of around 40 speakers at a suicide prevention forum in Darwin this week, where she relayed her experience trying to get her son help within the NT's mental health system.

"I had tried desperately to get appointments for my son with psychologists, I was constantly having the door shut, or appointments weren't ready," she said.

"At a time where I was spending 24 hours a day trying to keep my son safe, I was madly also trying to find out who could help me.

"Wherever I ended up I was constantly being told that there was nothing wrong with my son."

The NT has the nation's highest rates of suicide, acute mental illness and hospital presentations for self-harm.

At the same time, the Royal Darwin Hospital youth mental health facility was found to have posed serious risks to staff and patients in 2024 and mental health workers say other services aimed at prevention and early intervention are struggling to keep up with high demand.

Now Ms Jane-Knight is calling on NT health practitioners to listen and act on the experiences of those reaching out for help on behalf of a loved one, and also to be better equipped to make referrals to appropriate services.

"We have all of those different elements here that could've worked for my son, but I didn't know about them and no-one was telling me about them," she said.

"This is a hard conversation for me to have, but I know so well that I have to keep on having these conversations."

Remote mental health impacted by poverty, trauma

Karyn Moyle is an Eastern Arrernte, Warlpiri and Djaru woman whose family was part of the Stolen Generations.

Ms Moyle was a co-host of this week's suicide prevention forum.

She is a founder of Waterlily Healing Indigenous Corporation, which runs programs in remote communities throughout the NT around mental health and wellbeing, suicide prevention and bereavement.

She said many Aboriginal people in remote areas experienced the compounding grief of premature deaths, intergenerational trauma and poverty.

"What I have learnt is that when I meet people and they tell me about their story, I know there's always a bigger picture," she said.

Ms Moyle said too often, mental health services in remote regions were "box-ticking" exercises, with fly-in-fly-out staff who had not gained the trust of the people who needed help.

"Relationship building is really important, you need to prove yourself that you're actually in their community for the right reasons," she said.

Ms Moyle called on the government to invest in training and educating more remote mental health workers in remote communities.

"Because they're the ones that are going to stay in that community," she said.

Challenge to have 'courageous' conversations

Lidia and Michael Di Lembo founded not-for-profit Sabrina's Reach4Life after the death by suicide of their 19-year-old daughter in 2017.

In his 2018 report, former NT Coroner Greg Cavanagh found there were serious failings by GPs and other medical professionals in the weeks leading up to Sabrina's death.

Lidia Di Lembo was one of the organisers of this week's forum, which explored barriers in the Territory's health system that prevented tough conversations being had.

"The first thing thing that people get told when they do reach out to a help line is, 'Go to a GP'," she said.

"How do we change that so that people that go to a GP have more time to be listened to, but making sure that GPs have the skills and the training to deal with people that are suicidal?"

Ms Di Lembo said there were many people outside the health profession who could be called on to help implement change.

"It is anyone in the community and it is those with lived experience that can actually help shape future policy in how we best support those that are struggling,"