No one should ever have to feel like they’re not good enough to be here. That’s the message Kate Jones has been spreading across the Upper Hunter after losing her husband from a battle with PTSD, and then her son to suicide.
Kate never thought someone she loved so dearly would become part of the Upper Hunter’s tragic statistics. The Primary Health Network’s latest data shows Muswellbrook has one of the highest rates of death by suicide and emergency department presentations for mental health and behavioural disorders.
And often it’s the strongest in our community who suffer the most.
“My husband Steve was a fabulous police officer and community leader. Unfortunately, PTSD hit him very suddenly after 25 years in the force.
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing and at the time I thought he was doing really well but things seemed to change overnight, and the last ten years of his life were his unhappiest.
“Steve was never suicidal, but he was ashamed because he thought as a country cop he should be able to keep his head up and keep going.
“He and I both worked with our son Jared. We now believe he suffered from CTE (a brain injury from repeated head trauma), but he began having mental health issues in his very early 20s.
“Steve and I were beside him the whole way which sadly wasn’t enough. It was in a way because he chose to come home and spend the last few weeks of his life with me, but we now know Jared used Lifeline fifteen or more times in the lead up to his disappearance, so we do believe those calls gave him more time with us,” Kate explained.
In January 2025, Jared was reported missing and after three days of searching he was found to have taken his own life.
Despite unimaginable heartache, Kate has made sure his legacy lives on.
She created ‘Jared’s 9 for 9’ Walk. Held on World Suicide Prevention Day, September 10, the community comes together to walk nine kilometres to recognise the nine people who take their lives each day in Australia.
“I want everyone to know that it is okay not to be okay.”
Kate was an educator 37 years, teaching at a number of schools in the Upper Hunter.
“I see the young men who go out and play for the under-18s who are tough and strong but one of them came up to my crying during this year’s walk and said he remembered Jared. He was proud to be there, and I do think that our teenagers, particularly our teenage boys are talking a lot more.
“When I look at young people today, I see them leading the way in how they care for each other.
“But the men of my generation still find that really hard. They need to know that it is okay to talk.”
As well as organising the 9 for 9 Walk, Kate is an R U OK? Community Ambassador and teamed up with fellow community champion De-anne Douglas to create ‘Forever Loved: Together in Healing’ to spread the message across the Upper Hunter and beyond that no one is ever alone and the loved ones we have lost should be remembered, not forgotten.
“We held four events in September and it was wonderful. I met a family who lost their 21 year old only a couple of months ago. They came to the Forever Loved Family Support Day because they heard it was a suicide awareness event and they felt so ashamed.
“They felt like they had caused their child’s death or were somehow responsible for it. It was lovely to be able to say to them that I felt like that too.
“We also had two local young men who passed away recently and their families felt like they couldn’t even hold a celebration of their life – I don’t want families to ever feel like that,” Kate said.
Kate has never shied away from what she and her family have been through and how tough it has been.
“Jared’s last words to me were in a letter he put under my pillow. It will always be a very precious gift, but his last words were that he wished he was good enough.
“That is something I will do until my dying breath – let everyone know that they are good enough to be here. No one should ever feel that they aren’t good enough to stay alive.”
