Participants have learned how to recognise the symptoms of mental health issues, and how to approach and help people in a non-judgemental way, through a series of workshops since 2016.

Victorian Mental Health Minister Martin Foley met the 850th participant at a two-day session in Nhill on Tuesday.

Sheep farmer and kindergarten teacher Katrina Shirrefs traveled from Edenhope for the Nhill event. She said she felt the event helped people in both towns be more supportive of one another.

"I had heard of a number of people doing the program, and I thought the skills it taught would help me with my jobs," she said. "In farming, there is a high incidence of suicide, due to to a number of unique hardships, so it's helpful for my family and the wider community if I study some of this stuff."

Mrs Shirrefs also provides in-home support for families. She said it was important for community members to have the skills, given people's rural lifestyles meant it was harder for them to find the time to seek professional help.

"I think the more people doing a course like this, the more hope we have for reducing the number of suicides, especially in that male group between 40 and 50," she said.

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"I think one of the more important skills it teaches is to be better at listening, as opposed to telling people what they should be doing or feeling. There are a lot of confronting issues we're breaking them down and working out what we can do on the ground rather than always handballing them over to other people."

One of the instructors, Felicity Johns of the Wimmera Primary Care Partnership, said the courses were tailored to understanding the symptoms and signs of mental illness in youth and suicide prevention.

"It's about giving people the confidence to have difficult conversations, being able to talk to people and ask unambiguously 'Are you thinking of hurting yourself?'. And if the answer is yes, you need to be prepared by saying 'Have you got a plan and the means to do it?'.

"I did a suicide prevention course in Murtoa on Sunday with 20 people. By March they already had two suicides for the year, so it was a community in need and tremendously supportive of us going out there on Sunday to provide books, resources and real-life discussions on how we can support on each other.

"If there is a suicide in a community it can have a ripple effect, but in rural communities it's actually more like a tsunami. All evidence points towards communities having far greater opportunities for recovery if you get out to them face-to-face as soon as possible."

Ms Johns' lost her father, a former farmer to suicide 27 years ago, and she said her work was partly borne out of a desire to ensure some good came from her loss.

She said anyone who wanted to register for a course could contact her on 0421 250 428 or by messaging lissy.johns@wimmerapcp.org.au.

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