- Target:
- Beyond Blue
- Region:
- Australia
- Website:
- www.nhmrc.net
Just a short note to express my heartfelt appreciation for your support in asking Beyond Blue to include the GLBTI community in its Clinical Practice Guidelines. We achieved 277 signatures. Thank you.
We're very concerned at the high suicide rate in young gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex (GLBTI) people and are very keen to see them gain a strong representation in the mental health arena. In short, we want to make sure that we look after these young people.
According to the rough stats we have at hand, people in the GLBTI community are four times more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to fall victim to mental illness, including depression and suicide.
The problem is that we don't really know the actual percentage of GLBTI people who suffer, because we suspect that many of these young people don't ever get the chance to seek help. We are determined to change that.
Beyond Blue (the national depression initiative) in conjunction with Adelaide Health Technology Assessment (part of The University of Adelaide) have produced a draft paper entitled, 'Clinical Practical Guidelines: Depression in Adolescents and Young Adults.'
We would like to have the GLBTI community represented in these guidelines as a group of young people who are at very high risk of mental illness.
We, the undersigned, call on Beyond Blue and Adelaide Health Technology Assessment to recognise the GLBTI community as being at high risk of mental illness, including depression and suicide, and to include it as such in the 'Clinical Practical Guidelines: Depression in Adolescents and Young Adults.'
The Raising awareness of depression in at-risk groups petition to Beyond Blue was written by John Mitchell and is in the category Health at GoPetition.