Draft Suicide Prevention Action Plan for 2025 – 2029 Public consultation document

Suicide prevention efforts in New Zealand are guided by these two documents:

1. Every Life Matters – He Tapu te Oranga o ia Tangata: Suicide Prevention Strategy 2019–2029 (He Tapu te Oranga)
2. Suicide Prevention Action Plan 2019–2024 for Aotearoa New Zealand. 

The strategy contains the framework for a national approach to suicide prevention and was designed to be supported by two five-year action plans that would contain the practical activities to drive change.  

The first Suicide Prevention Action Plan, covering 2019–2024, will expire at the end of this year.

The Ministry of Health has led the drafting of a new action plan which is strongly aligned with the Government’s Mental Health portfolio priorities, which in this context are to:  

• improve access to suicide prevention and postvention support
• grow a workforce that is able to support those at risk of or impacted by suicide
• strengthen our focus on prevention and early intervention across the range of factors that can influence suicide
• improve the effectiveness of suicide prevention and postvention supports by improving research and data collection.

The draft action plan draws from the insights that communities, families and people with lived experience have shared around what they need from government to prevent suicide, as well as the key evidence and research.  

The draft action plan focuses on a range of initiatives and actions that health agencies and government agencies have committed to that will support suicide prevention.