Headspace visits Bellarine students for mental health talk

HEADSPACE visited Bellarine Secondary College last week to help promote positive mental health in young people.

Community engagement officer, Sheldon Alexander, and peer support worker, Nicole Scott, gave a presentation to Year 9 students doing an elective subject called Learning in Community – Back in My Day.

“Part of my role as community engagement officer is going and talking to people about mental health and reducing the stigma that we know prevents a lot of young people from seeking help,” Sheldon said.

“And that’s something what we’ve done across the region for a long time, but at the moment we’re incorporating Nicole’s role, which is a peer support worker.

“Nicole has lived experience in mental health and we know young people pay more attention when they know someone has been through something, as it makes it more real, and also we know that that plays a much greater role in reducing the stigma, so we are trialling that this year.”

Nicole said she suffered from severe social anxiety and depression, and wasn’t able to go to school or work.

“But then I started finding the right supports for me and now I want to help others,” she said.

headspace is the National Youth Mental Health Foundation providing early intervention mental health services to 12-25 year olds.

headspace can help young people with mental health, physical health (including sexual health) alcohol and other drug services, and work and study support.

“We are available to all schools in the region and TAFEs and unis, and we find with these post-COVID times, we are visiting one or two a week,” Sheldon said.

“We deliver from Year 7 to past high school, but we help people up to 25 years.

“We find a lot of schools contact us for years 9 and 10 because that’s where a lot of issues start arising within friendship groups or with young people and things happening in their life, as there is a lot of pressure put on them at that age.”

For more information, head to headspace.org.au.