By Molly Magennis
More students in the west will have access to mental health support thanks to grants from VicHealth.
On April 12, VicHealth announced 27 project partners who will receive a share of $5 million through their The Big Connect program.
This funding will help these partners to deliver programs aimed at supporting the social and mental wellbeing of young people across the state.
One of these project partners was Equal Ed, a not-for-profit founded in 2016, which is aimed at making quality education and support accessible for every student.
Their Higher Education and Student Advancement Program (HESA) works with students in the west to educate them about mental health, and to try and instill preventative measures and techniques the students can use throughout high school and beyond.
Equal Ed founder and managing director Jeffrey Lai said this funding is crucial in helping them expand the scope of the program.
“The opportunity with Vichealth allows us to be able to [go] to schools free of charge, expand the number of schools we can go to, really solidify our content, which is what we’re trying to do,” he said.
“Right now we work with around two to three schools a year and usually we work with other staff and a few workshops scattered throughout the year. We want to maintain this model and expand it to 10 different schools in the western region.”
Mr. Lai said as well as instilling preventative measures, the program works to destigmatize mental health, and really hone in on the fact that it’s an extremely common issue among students of all ages.
“We usually run a mental health awareness type workshop….we have scenarios and they have small group discussions about what they would do if their friend was in this scenario, and it…. primes their minds to think about some of the stressors that might be coming up and how to be empathetic towards other people.”
According to a Vichealth survey, 84 per cent of young people agree that being socially connected is important for their mental wellbeing.
VicHealth’s executive manager of Future Healthy Sarah Loh said those figures are why they’ve launched The Big Connect, “to deliver what young people have told us they want and need to connect with each other and their communities.”
