The document discusses Andrew Markovs' work in suicide prevention and mental health first aid training in Western Australia. It outlines that he is a principal instructor for Mental Health First Aid and suicide prevention gatekeeper training workshops. It also notes that through these workshops over the past 9 years, he has educated people across various communities, organizations and workplaces in the Great Southern region on issues of mental health and suicide prevention from his perspective of living experience. The document closes by emphasizing the importance of suicide prevention efforts given that more people die each year from suicide in Australia than from traffic accidents and homicides combined, and that each of these suicides could have been prevented.

1. One Life Suicide Prevention program Gold Pledge Partner
Act-Belong-Commit Campaign Partner
MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID training
GATEKEEPER suicide prevention training workshops
Many people with mental illness and/or symptoms of suicide ideation
are at risk of missing out on vital early help because those around
them simply don’t know what to do. The WA Mental Health
Commissioner, Tim Marney, believes that every West Australian has a
role to play in stemming the state’s suicide toll that has climbed to one
person a day. He said that “it was essential that the WA population
ought to be educated in Mental Health First aid and knew how to act.
Maintaining mental health and wellbeing was the key to suicide
prevention. We also know that 4 out of 5 suicides are male and,
between the ages of 15 to 45, suicide is the biggest single killer.”
Positive outcomes are possible through early recognition and intervention taught by appropriate
resources such as the Mental Health First Aid and the One Life Gatekeeper Suicide Prevention
training workshops.
Andrew Markovs is well known throughout the Great Southern Region of WA for his passionate
and knowledgeable work in the preventative mental health field. Since his diagnosis with bipolar
disorder in 2001, Andrew has found his own way through the darkness of depression, alcohol +
substance abuse and suicide ideation. He is a Principal Master MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID
instructor and a ONE LIFE GATEKEEPER SUICIDE PREVENTION instructor. Andrew is a
member of the WA Mental Health Commission’s ‘Lived Experience Advisory Group’, their ‘Regional
Advisory Group’ and a member of the University of WA School of Population Health’s ‘Consumer +
Community Advisory Group’. He is a winner in the Consumer Engagement + Involvement category
of the WA Mental Health Good Outcomes Award and is passionate about issues of mental health
and suicide prevention from a knowledgeable and lived experience point of view.
Over the past 9 years Andrew has delivered many Mental Health First Aid and Gatekeeper training
workshops across the Great Southern Region to consumers, carers, community members,
departments, organisations and workplaces such as the Great Southern GP Network, Community
First, Department of Food + Agriculture, South Coast Natural Resource Management, Anglicare,
Great Southern Institute of Technology and the Department of Corrective Services. Andrew’s
ability to present effectively to a wide range of audiences is shown through consistently positive
participant evaluation results and feedback:
“Andrew is an inspiring, charismatic instructor who is skilled at delivering important mental health
and suicide prevention information to participants in his valuable training workshops”
Terrell Lacey CMHN Credentialed Mental Health Nurse
REMEMBER……..MORE PEOPLE DIE THROUGH SUICIDES EACH YEAR IN AUSTRALIA THAN THROUGH TRAFFIC
FATALITIES AND HOMICIDES COMBINED. EVERY ONE OF THOSE SUICIDES COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED.