Donna Mayes was reacting to the Victorian Government adding Benalla to a list of communities who will receive funding to form suicide prevention plans.

The move follows the decision of the Myer Foundation-backed Youth Live4Life program to expand to Benalla next year to tackle youth suicide and mental health.

“Hopefully all these programs combined will set Benalla up so that the youth really know where to go, what to do and where they can seek help,” Mrs Mayes said.

“The biggest outcome would be to prevent any more suicides, that would be the best scenario.”

Mrs Mayes’ son Max Avdyugin died in March after suffering mental anguish through bullying.

“It has been nine months since Max’s death and a lot of this stuff has been kickstarted by his death,” she said.

“I would hope by next year that we’re moving on and there are some really good statistics coming up.

“I think what it has done has highlighted the issue in town and probably from our perspective the volume of people that were at his funeral, 700, that was big because there’s 700 that know what the implications of what he did were.”

Mrs Mayes is keen for the new Benalla Council to follow the efforts of retired mayor Justin King who championed anti-suicide measures through 2016.

Mr King’s mayoral successor Don Firth said the new council planned to tackle mental health and suicide.

“I do know that a couple of our councillors are very engaged and concerned about it and I know one in particular wants to give (mental illness) a high priority,” Cr Firth said.

“I have a family member that suffers from it and it’s high on my agenda as well.”

The Victorian Government is partnering with the Murray Primary Health Network for the prevention project which is aimed at halving the suicide rate by 2025.

Benalla is the only North East participant out of 14.