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"We've come such a long way in so many areas ... but suicide rates have gone backwards," says UWA's straight-talking Professor Pat Dudgeon who is leading national research initiatives in mental health and suicide prevention from the School of Indigenous Studies. The high profile academic leader was Australia's first Indigenous psychologist when she graduated. She has been awarded the Indigenous Allied Health Australia Lifetime Achievement Award and a Deadlys Award for Excellence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health.

When she left a Darwin school at 15, Pat Dudgeon was well aware of her unfulfilled academic potential, and as she observed the problems faced by some Northern Territory and Kimberley communities, including racism, the young Bardi woman became determined to tap that potential and work on behalf of her people.

With no university in the Territory at that time, she returned to Western Australia, driven by the notion that "there were things I felt I could do in the Aboriginal community". As inaugural Chair of the Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association and now a Commissioner of the National Mental Health Commission, she has been serving the interests of communities across Australia ever since.

"We've come such a long way in so many areas - with far more support and pride in Aboriginal people - but suicide rates are at least two to three times higher than in the mainstream community," says Professor Dudgeon. "It's an epidemic, and few extended families, including my own, have not suffered. That has galvanised me to work in this area of prevention."

That determination to be an agent of change saw the UWA researcher coordinate a unique roundtable event - The Third Conversation: Has Anything Changed? Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health and Suicide Prevention - bringing together elders, youth leaders, health professionals, academics, social justice campaigners, state and national Mental Health Commissioners and government representatives.

The June forum pivoted on the presence of Professor Michael Chandler from The University of British Columbia whose research emphasises that youth suicide can be addressed, provided young people see they have a future.

"This was Professor Chandler's third visit and he was the catalyst for the forum," says Professor Dudgeon. "His research highlights common problems facing our people and those of First Nation communities in Canada. He sees these problems very much in terms of a lack of valuing a cultural identity and of communities exercising self-determination or ‘cultural continuity'.

"Suicide prevention strategies are linked to cultural continuity: positive land rights negotiations, the community-controlled delivery of services, acknowledging the wisdom of elders, putting women in leadership positions and establishing facilities to strengthen culture and community. All of these elements are markers of the importance of cultural continuity and reflect the situation of Indigenous people in other settler countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

"Despite the Apology and Reconciliation, we have a long way to go to address implicit racism in Australian society and institutions. Education can play a key role in moving forward, because increasing the number of students and staff and embedding Indigenous Studies in school and university curricula ultimately empowers Indigenous communities and benefits mainstream society as well.

"In Australia, we need to reclaim our culture and adopt a gendered approach to representation on boards, as advocated by the United Nations. Ten years ago there were few women in leadership positions; now our role is acknowledged as significant."

During the roundtable, the second edition of Working Together, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health and Wellbeing, Principles and Practice was launched. Acknowledged as an excellent resource for those working in mental health and suicide prevention,
it is edited by Professor Dudgeon, UWA's Professor Helen Milroy and Associate Professor Roz Walker from the UWA-affiliated Telethon Kids Institute. (aboriginal.telethonkids.org.au/kulunga-research-network/working-together-2nd-edition-2014)

Also launched at the forum was a new leadership group that signals a new era in the areas of mental health and suicide prevention: the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Leadership in Mental Health group has coalesced around a core group of senior Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders associated with the Australian mental health commissions (natsilmh.org.au)

While Professor Dudgeon has clearly been an inspiration to many, she in turn was motivated by activists such as the late Rob Riley, a member of the Stolen Generation who took his life in 1996. His contributions are remembered in the second edition of the Working Together book.

Being the first Indigenous keynote speaker at an Australian Psychological Society Annual Conference in Perth in 1995, Rob Riley appealed to the discipline and allied professions to find better ways to deliver mental wellbeing services to Aboriginal people.

"There are of course daunting and at times seemingly insurmountable obstacles, yet the challenges can be stimulating and enticing...I make the assumption that you...have the motives and open-mindedness to incorporate different perspectives within the discipline that you have chosen," he said.

Like Mr Riley, Pat Dudgeon believes that psychologists and mental health and social science professionals have an absolute obligation to share in the difficult task and she urges others to take up Riley's call to "join us in this quest".

Professor Dudgeon is currently leading several major national research projects, including being project leader of the National Empowerment Project funded by a Federal Government grant to UWA. The project is partnering with local communities, training and supporting local researchers and offering suicide prevention and other programs.

"This is the way to do research and bring about change," says Professor Dudgeon. "We must work in partnership with the communities so they own the process and the outcomes."