Suicide Prevention in Communities Program co-ordinator Merilyn Keene said the concept started in the UK. Police decided to do something about elderly people and loneliness, so it was a police initiative that was adopted enthusiastically by a town and it went from there, she said. We were talking at the beginning of last year about projects and the one they decided on was a chat seat and a men s event. We started with a small group and we used a trial to fine tune what we were going to do and then we had a training session. Buderim s chat seat has taken off with more volunteers needed to lend an ear.