Lock up your boss for a good cause
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Suicide is the leading cause of preventable death in Australia. In Canberra alone, one life is lost to suicide every week.
Lifeline provides an incredible service in their confidential telephone crisis support service designed to listen, give instantaneous support, clarify options and provide callers with referral information for other services in the caller’s area.
However, this service requires time and money to maintain. Lifeline receives approximately 1800 calls per day and each potentially life-saving call costs around $26 to answer. To continue these efforts, Lifeline is heavily dependent on community support.
That’s why Lifeline’s ‘Lock Up Your Boss’ campaign is running again this year in Canberra from until Friday 8 June. You can sign up any time before Saturday 9 June.
The premise is simple: a boss is nominated by their staff, and detained in a virtual prison. They can only be released when their staff have raised enough money to bail them out. The money raised will be going to Lifeline Canberra’s 13 11 14 crisis support line.
CEO of Lifeline Canberra Carrie Leeson says that the Lock Up Your Boss event was created as a result of a long-standing partnership with SERVICE ONE Alliance Bank.
“Lock Up Your Boss is an event that allows individuals and their employers the opportunity to start conversations, to reach out and educate around mental health, and to raise funds for crisis support and suicide prevention in Canberra,” she explains. “The support prior to launching has been unprecedented.”
The success of 2017’s Lock Up your Boss initiative is evident – bosses Ross MacDiarmid (CEO, Royal Australian Mint) and Jed Johnson (CEO, Random Computing) have signed up again in 2018.
Ross MacDiarmid says that attending a Lifeline function in 2015 inspired him to participate in the campaign.
“I have been moved and humbled by the incredible work of Lifeline Canberra,” he says. “Hearing stories from those who volunteer and those who have benefited from the service compelled me to participate”.
Jed Johnson is also passionate about transparency when it comes to mental health.
“It’s very important to me that conversations around mental health become normal both in the workplace and with family and friends,” he says. “The support Lifeline makes available to all of us is invaluable and I am privileged to be able to support them again this year.”
Supporting Lifeline through this campaign will produce more positive stories like the one shared by Dennis on the Lifeline website.
“I was so utterly bleak and hopeless… I needed help. So I called Lifeline. I believe that phone call and the doctor at the hospital saved my life. The relief was like a physical weight off my shoulders. I was so happy that someone else understood, that I was not on my own.”
Dennis now volunteers on the phones at Lifeline as a Crisis Supporter.
If you would like the chance to ‘lock up your boss’ for this great cause – then here it is!
To apply as a boss, or ‘dob’ your boss in, visit the website to register and one of the Lifeline team members will come out and take some photos of the boss behind bars and deliver their fundraising kit.
For further information please contact Carrie Leeson on 0405 721 473.
The importance of mobilising community support for Lifeline remains paramount. The money raised through the Lock Up Your Boss campaign saves lives.
If you’re in need of help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit the website.
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