Old Collegians' Association
CAPS Inc.

CAPS History

CAPS was formed in late 2001. The idea of developing a community group to support 'effective and evidence based' suicide prevention strategies originally came from the President of CAPS, Richard Roberts. Richard believed that his daughter's death to suicide might have been further complicated by a lack of adequate health service delivery including appropriate treatment and support. Thus, the impetus behind forming a cohesive group of community support for evidence based suicide prevention activities came from personal experience of perceived inadequacy in the current state of suicide prevention initiatives. When approached by Richard Roberts on this issue, the Director of AISRAP, Professor Deigo De Leo, provided a specific view for involvement of the community in the support of innovative and 'state of the art' suicide prevention research activities.

Richard Roberts and Professor De Leo then began to recruit several known individuals within the community who either had a personal or professional interest in suicide prevention, or whose expertise provided guidance and support to the CAPS cause. After several meetings with the recruited group of members, CAPS identified several objectives to meet the overall goal and vision originally proposed.

In February 2002, CAPS became registered as an incorporated association in Queensland. Following this, the original core of volunteers decided to make CAPS more widely known to the public, with the view of inviting a wide range of interest community and organisational members to become official CAPS members. CAPS was publicly launched in Brisbane in May 2003 and the first CAPS Newsletter was issued at the same time.