To mark Lifeline’s 60th birthday today, ACT emergency services will brand two operational vehicles with the mental health charity’s livery: a Rural Fire Service heavy tanker stationed at Hall, and a State Emergency Service flood and storm vehicle at Gungahlin.
Across Australia, Lifeline’s crisis support and suicide prevention hotline (13 11 14) has received more than 23 million calls since 1963 – one million calls last year alone, and as many expected this year again.
“This is our way of supporting that, and forming a partnership with the great work that they do for the ACT community,” RFS chief officer Rohan Scott said.
Pat Coffey, commander of the Gungahlin SES volunteer unit, was the driving force behind the branding.
“We’ve long thought about supporting a community organisation by this process,” Mr Coffey said. “We went to our members to see who they valued in the community and who they would like to support. Lifeline was an easy decision for us.”
“It’s truly wonderful to have the branding on the vehicles, to be out here in the community,” Lifeline Canberra CEO Carrie-Ann Leeson said.
The organisations had a long-lived partnership, she remarked. Both were there for people in their darkest hours. While the ESA secured the safety and wellbeing of people in crisis, Lifeline supported them – and first responders and the wider public – beyond the crisis itself, providing help 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“We are covering both the physical and emotional wellbeing of our community this way,” Ms Leeson said.
“Canberrans need help on different levels,” Mr Coffey said – which the ESA and Lifeline provided. “It’s a great thing that both these organisations have come together to show a joint support for the Canberra community.”
Floods, bushfires, poor air quality, and the pandemic have caused trauma, anxiety, and burnout, Ms Leeson noted.
She hoped the vehicles would remind the public that “mums and dads, brothers and sisters, are working around the clock to keep them safe”.
“It’s important that individuals in their time of need feel courageous enough to reach out for help when they do need help,” Ms Leeson said.
She thanked the ESA for keeping the community safe. “Our emergency services are courageous in their own right: going out, facing situations and issues that are difficult every single day.”
Most first responders have dealt with mental health issues, given the nature of their work, ACT SES chief officer Anthony Draheim said. Mr Scott hopes the emergency services can leverage off Lifeline’s work to protect their volunteers and families.
This Saturday, the ESA will hold its Ainslie to Everest fundraiser for Lifeline. ACT Fire and Rescue members will run up Mt Ainslie, wearing breathing apparatuses, until they climb the equivalent height of Mt Everest. A Lifeline call costs the charity $26 – and the firies hope to raise $50,000. So far, they have raised nearly $47,400.
“Imagine the amount of lives we can change, and even save in some instances, with that funding,” Ms Leeson said. “We’re so grateful for that.”
