Australia - Mental health systems work best when they're built by and for the communities they serve.

Australia - Mental health systems work best when they're built by and for the communities they serve. The 2026 National Indigenous Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Conference brings that principle to the centre — gathering community members, clinicians, lived experience advocates, researchers, and policymakers in Adelaide from 24 to 26 March. Now in its fifth year, the conference is hosted by the Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association on Kaurna Country. The program is built around Indigenous-led approaches to healing, suicide prevention, and self-determination — with keynotes, yarning circles, and On-Country sessions that treat culture, language, and lived experience as foundations for wellbeing, not add-ons. Speakers include Professor Marcia Langton AO, Professor Pat Dudgeon AM, and a strong lineup of Indigenous practitioners and advocates from across Australia. This is the kind of gathering the mental health field needs more of — not just as a space for knowledge exchange, but as a model for what it looks like when communities lead their own healing.