Lifeline Gippsland

The beginning of Lifeline

Living in Sydney in 1963, Rev Alan Walker became aware of the need to develop an organised system for meeting the profound depth of human need that existed. He was seeing people struggling with depression and other mental and social issues and there was nowhere they could turn to for help.

Rev Walker had been working with a young man who was desperately lonely, in debt and considered himself a failure. The young man later died by suicide and it was his death that motivated Rev Walker to establish the Lifeline organisation. Rev Walker believed suicide prevention was possible and that with crisis support the young man would have got his life back on track. Lifeline became a way for people to reach out from their own homes, just where they were.

History of Lifeline Gippsland

Four years after Lifeline was established in Sydney, Morwell bank officer Bill Watson initiated a similar service in the Gippsland region. He established a steering committee which organised volunteers willing to donate their time to training. These volunteers went on to become the first group to offer telephone crisis support and so, in 1968, Lifeline Gippsland was born.

The Lifeline Gippsland crisis support service started at the back of a church building, in an old house in Morwell. The organisation was funded through financial donations and in-kind support from community groups, church groups, service clubs and the Gippsland community.

The Lifeline Gippsland multi-purpose building

The Lifeline Gippsland administration headquarters changed in 2009 when we moved to the corner of Church and Fleming Streets, Morwell. Our multi-purpose building is well set up to provide round-the-clock telephone crisis support, but also includes a separate events centre which groups and businesses hire for meetings and conferences.