Lifeline Community Custodians Program Insights

The Lifeline Community Custodians program, an AIS–Lifeline Australia partnership enabled twenty-one elite athletes the opportunity to increase awareness around suicide prevention and the importance of reaching out for help.

Nineteen of the 2019–20 Community Custodians participated in a concept mapping project to provide athlete-driven insights into the benefits of the program.

Lifeline-Community-Custodians-Program-Evaluation-Summary.pdf

Research questions

Question 1 What benefits have athletes experienced from being involved in the AIS Lifeline Community Custodian program?

Question 2 How important is the benefit?

Question 3 How influential is the benefit on athletic training and performance?

Key findings

Athletes identified 50 unique benefits from participating in the program. These can be summarised by six key themes:

1. Opportunity to contribute to the community
2. An advocate for mental health and wellbeing
3. Learning and developing new skills
4. Personal development
5. Building networks and connections
6. Additional benefits

20 of the 50 benefits were rated above average for importance and influence. The four most important benefits of participating in the program for athletes were:

• It provides athletes with an opportunity to be role models in the community
• It provides an opportunity to let everyone know that they are not alone
• It started positive conversations about mental health
• Athletes heard other people’s experiences and why mental health is important to them