About Us

We are providing a new approach to show family and friends how to lessen the risk of attempted suicide and death from suicide in someone close to them. This is a huge problem all around the world.

In Tough Times Text is a family / community-driven suicide prevention initiative, supplementing conventional care if that is available.

The direct involvement of close contacts brings emotionally powerful forces to bear in a life and death situation, at no cost to the patient, family or health service. We request your help in providing publicity for what we do, and in sending us more high-impact texts and stories of survival to help others.

Our core message is

“You would never advise a friend to die; tell yourself what you’d tell a friend.”

Suicide is the most common cause of death and injury in Australians age 15 to 45, male and female (Australian Bureau of Statistics). This is almost 3x more frequent than death and injury by cars.

Plus suicide deaths per year
(Australian Bureau of Statistics)

Suicide attempts per year
(research estimate)

People consider suicide in a year in Australia
(research estimate)

Kristin Michaels

Chair

Kristin has a number of years of involvement and leadership within the healthcare industry in both public and private sectors. She has experience in organisational improvement and development of robust collaborations and partnerships, and governance experience in acute, aged care, community health and primary care.

Kristin has served as Chair of the Board at Yea District Memorial Hospital and is a Governor at the Windemere Foundation. In her work life, Kristin runs a national peak body in the healthcare sector operating in each State of Australia. A Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Kristin also has extensive experience as a professional mentor and executive coach and is a qualified futurist.

David Horgan

Founder & Medical Director

MB BCh BAO FRANZCP MRCPsych
DPM MPhil FRCPEdin MD
Formerly Consultant Psychiatrist (now retired).
Formerly Clinical Associate Professor, University of Melbourne
Formerly Senior Specialist Psychiatrist, Royal Melbourne Hospital

Bachelor of Medicine
Bachelor of Surgery
Bachelor of Applied Obstetrics

Dr David Horgan is a retired psychiatrist and Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne. He completed his medical education in Dublin and holds six specialist qualifications in psychiatry. He later moved to Melbourne, where he held senior academic and clinical positions at the University of Melbourne and the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

During his clinical career, Dr Horgan worked extensively in private practice, with a particular focus on the outpatient treatment of resistant depression and individuals at high risk of suicide, often on referral from other psychiatrists.

Dr Horgan has maintained a strong commitment to community suicide prevention. In 1997, he established an Australia-wide freecall suicide prevention telephone service. In the early 2000s, he founded several community mental health initiatives, including depression.com.au, suicideprevention.com.au, and aftersuicide.com.au. He later established the registered charity Australian Suicide Prevention Foundation and worked with Irish authorities to help introduce similar services in the Republic of Ireland.

Throughout his career, Dr Horgan was heavily involved in medical education, lecturing to medical students, general practitioners, and psychiatrists. His publications and clinical work focused on combined antidepressant treatments, less commonly used medications, and intensive patient care, with the aim of reducing suffering and contributing to lower suicide and attempted suicide rates.

John Hardy

Director

John has enjoyed a career in telecommunications and IT, executive search and coaching and mentoring culminating in executive positions in Australia & Europe. His experience covers global marketing and management roles in the sales, marketing and services functions. He spent some years in France setting up and running a worldwide organisation dedicated to the Telco industry sector before returning to Australia and joining Motorola to launch the Pacific arm of their cellular infrastructure division. He became the international vice president responsible for Telstra, one of Motorola’s twenty global accounts, with responsibility for overall account strategy and the global executive relationship.

John joined ASPF in 2008.
John has extensive experience in strategy development and implementation, technology, sales & marketing and client relationship & contract management. He is a Fellow of the Australian Company Directors Association and has held commercial and industry Board positions. John holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration in addition to his Science degree.

Thomas Green

Director

Tom has a background as a digital marketing strategist and growth consultant, entrepreneur & a Director of Business Development directing organisations on their technology/digital strategic direction during the age of digital disruption, specifically focused on how to enhance/optimise the customer experience, whilst increasing reach and decreasing costs. He is practised in considering and mitigating risks arising from the security and integrity of data (from a regulatory and privacy perspective), IT systems availability and performance, to the larger business risk (and human cost in this instance) that comes from not being digitally competitive.

Dr Caterina Sloan

Director

Cathy is a General Practitioner in Brighton, Melbourne. She trained in Melbourne and the United Kingdom. Her initial interests were in Rural Medicine and developed a range of skills in anaesthetics, obstetrics and paediatrics. She has practised in Broome, the Torres Straits, Orbost and Horsham and had a busy practice on the Mornington Peninsula.

She is a firm believer in GPs being multi-skilled and having as wide as possible experience and has, over the last 15 years, had a great interest in mental health. She has a particular interest in the individual variation in patient’s response to medications and has been keenly interested in genetic testing for individual’s metabolism of drugs. In addition because of her extensive training in gynaecology she is interested in mental health issues relating to hormonal changes in women. She is passionate about the de-stigmatising of all types of mental illness through education and naturally about suicide prevention.

Mary Rose Morgan

Director, Treasurer

Mary Rose joined ASPF as a director in 2006 after a career in industrial relations and as a senior manager and deputy CEO of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. She was a director of a community bank for many years and had a private practice as a tax agent. Mary Rose is actively involved in community cultural organisations, especially those involving music.

Richard Dent OAM

Director

Richard is a seasoned not-for-profit leader with over 25 years’ experience guiding charities and social-impact organisations across Australia and the Asia-Pacific. As a former CEO, Director and Chair, he has helped build and manage organisations of various sizes – from small specialist teams to large, multi-site operations – always with a focus on helping individuals and communities thrive.

He is deeply committed to promoting personal and collective wellbeing. Over the years Richard has supported thousands of people and teams to discover greater clarity, purpose and resilience. He has led efforts in leadership development, diversity and inclusion, and organisational change, always grounded in the belief that strong, healthy communities begin with empowered individuals.

Richard has been recognised with an Order of Australia for his service to the community. Through his work with ASPF and multiple other charities, he brings a practical, people-centred approach. He believes that by strengthening individuals and organisations, together we can build a kinder, more connected and more compassionate society – where everyone has the support and opportunity to flourish.

The Foundation

The Australian Suicide Prevention Foundation is a registered charity focussed on providing help for those considering suicide, and for their friends and relatives affected by such an event or risk.

Our core message is “you would never advise a friend to die; tell yourself what you’d tell a friend”.

Mission: To help change the landscape of suicide prevention in Australia
Role: Mobilising and guiding family and friends to help people with suicidal thoughts

Our values:
Life matters
We are independent and apolitical
We value community input and lived experience

Contact Us:
admin@aspf.org

We acknowledge that throughout Australia we are on unceded lands of Indigenous Peoples.

*Important Disclaimer: Our texts are approved by those who themselves had suicidal thoughts, and by medical and other mental health professionals. This site is medical information only, and is not to be taken as diagnosis, advice or treatment, which can only be decided by your own doctor or mental health professional.

Australian Suicide
Prevention Foundation

For over 20 years we’ve provided Australia-wide suicide prevention to every and any vulnerable Australian, whether they be in metropolitan, rural or isolated areas.

Connect

Support

By donating to or otherwise assisting inToughTimesText.org (a programme from ASPF.org) you are helping hundreds of thousands of people who have or will have suicidal ideas.

Built by Conscious Agency

Help save a life by sending our medically approved texts.* #inToughTimesText

Australian Suicide Prevention Foundation

A National Health Promotion Charity

About Us

“You would never advise a friend to die; tell yourself what you’d tell a friend.”

Suicide is the most common cause of death and injury in Australians age 15 to 45, male and female (Australian Bureau of Statistics). This is almost 3x more frequent than death and injury by cars.

Kristin Michaels

David Horgan

John Hardy

Thomas Green

Dr Caterina Sloan

Mary Rose Morgan

Richard Dent OAM

The Foundation