Connecting2community ready to help

IMAGINE being held captive by anxiety to the point of being unable to take the bus around town.

Without the bus, food friends and family are all out of reach. Sara Smith Cunningham knows how mental unwellness feels.

“I want to help others recover just like I have,” she said.

Ms Smith Cunningham is one of four trained peer support workers, with lived experience of mental health issues, delivering the Connecting2community support program at Ballarat Community Health.

Co-designer of the program Rick Corney said they can connect with the people they work with because they have that shared lived experience.

“They relate to us because we have been down the same track,” he said.

“When people feel connected to their community their mental health improves because they are not lonely or isolated.”

Co-worker Lucy Beaton said having been personally on their own journeys of recovery, the team members are an example of how to get well step by step.

“We work with people to set a self-selected achievable goal which helps give them courage and self-belief,” she said.

“With a peer workforce of four in the program, hopefully it inspires other people to pick up the phone and say ‘I might be in a bad place now but with a bit of help from these guys I can get on my way’.”

For more information contact Ballarat Community Health on 5338 4500.