Warning: this article contains themes that may be distressing for some readers, including self-harm and domestic violence.
The expansion of the national helpline for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to a text-based service has been welcomed as a "significant" step in plugging critical gaps in crisis support.
13YARN, a 24-hour service, has become a vital support for Indigenous people needing mental health since its inception in 2022.
It has also emerged as an important advocate for First Nations peoples' mental wellbeing, highlighting the significant increases in the use of its service in the wake of events like the Voice to Parliament referendum.
In the annual Closing the Gap speech last week, the prime minister Anthony Albanese said the government would boost the service with an extra $13.9 million.
Aunty Marjorie Anderson, Head of Indigenous Affairs at Lifeline, helped design, deliver and manage 13YARN. She says the new funding is the result of long advocacy by her organisation.
"We're being told by the community, we needed a tech service," the Gamilaroi woman said of the new text line.
"We've been fighting for it for quite some time."
Ms Anderson said the text line would provide a important new pathway for mob experiencing difficulties to make contact with the service.
"Particularly young people," she told NITV.
"Suicides [are] the single biggest killer of our youth, and I wanted to make sure that we had a service there where youth were comfortable to reach out.
"It's also good to have a text service for women in domestic violence situations. You won't always have a safe space to ring, but you might have a safe space to be able to text.
"And also, 43 per cent of Aboriginal adults have hearing loss, so the text chat might suit those people better as well."
According to 13YARN, the organisation passed a significant milestone on Christmas Day last year: fielding its 100,000th call.
That record call came a year earlier than anticipated, a mark of how the service has come to be relied upon since it was first created.
Ms Anderson said the organisation's significant community outreach program, and word of mouth recommendations, were behind its success.
"You know what mob are like ... once they realised it was Blackfellas running it, and it is Blackfellas answering the line, then the service really grew at an amazing rate.
"Telecom's got nothing on tele-Koori ... people ringing and getting that safe service, they'll tell others."
"Mob trust us."
In the months following the 2023 referendum, 13YARN said it was inundated with calls relating to racism experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
Some 25 per cent of all calls in the first few months of 2024 related to racist experiences, 13YARN said at the time.
Only 16 per cent noted that as the reason for their call in 2022, the helpline's inaugural year, and 19 per cent in 2023.
Ms Anderson believes recent events have also sparked more people to phone for help.
"In the last maybe six months, calls have really risen," she said.
"I think that's got to do ... with the Neo Nazis marching and Aboriginal people not feeling safe after what happened at Camp Sovereignty.
"Then after ... the attempted bombing in Perth and how it took days for them to come out and say it was a terrorist act; if it was any other group, it would have been called a terrorist attack straight away.
"This is a sort of behaviour that Aboriginal people see, where we are treated differently to every other group.
"Aboriginal people just aren't feeling safe in their own country at the moment. So when you're feeling unsafe ... things that you might have been able to be resilient enough to cope with sometimes will be magnified because of the way you're already feeling.
"That's why I think the net calls have gone up."
While announcing the new funding during his address last week, the prime minister noted the failures in the Closing the Gap targets.
"The most urgent is suicide," he told parliament.
"Suicide shatters families, it tears apart communities ... Compared to non-Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are two and a half times more likely to die by suicide.
"As a matter of priority, our government will deliver $13.9 million to boost the national support line, 13YARN, a crisis counselling service designed, led and delivered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
"24 hours a day, 7 days a week, they offer: 'No shame, no judgement, a safe place to yarn.'”
13YARN 13 92 76
