World Mental Health Day

On the 9th October seven Year 10 students had the opportunity to attend the Hume World Mental Health Expo along with students from other schools in the area. The expo was run by Hume City Council in partnership with the Sebastian Foundation to showcase supports to navigate mental health and build resilience for young people.

The students had the opportunity to visit stalls from key sector providers including Centre for Multicultural Youth, Headspace, DPV Health, Batyr, Youth Projects, Orygen Digital, Cannie Comprehension and Brotherhood of St Laurence. Here students gained information about tools and strategies to support mental health and wellbeing and gained valuable take home resources.

The students participated in activities such as writing a letter to their future self, creating a mental health and wellbeing pledge for the pledge wall and having their secret superpower visually depicted by a graphic recorder.

Formalities began with an opening from Mayor Cr Joseph Haweil who spoke about the importance of supporting the mental health of young people in our community and helping them to connect, find support and thrive. The students heard from a young person from Batyr who spoke about her own lived experience of mental health and her journey towards recovery. The afternoon concluded with the keynote speaker, Guy Sebastian, who spoke about his own mental health journey and his work with the Sebastian Foundation and their program Open Parachute.

The student’s had an enjoyable and informative day and learnt skills to further advocate for and support mental health awareness at school. The students should be proud of the way they represented the College and their role in advocating for the mental health and wellbeing of young people.

Annika Ring and Glen Widdicombe

Dealing with mental health problems can be very hard for most people,but knowing that there's help and being able to ask about it will help you when you're in a bad situation. Always seek help from family,friends or anyone you trust. - Mariam Yako

I really enjoyed the whole day and found all the tips and tricks very useful for good mental health. I especially loved meeting the therapy dogs, they were so calm and comforting. - Lana Halligan

It was a really good day, I found all of the activities engaging and I learnt a lot from them. My favourite thing was the therapy dogs. - Sarah Leahy

The Mental Health Expo was full of fun activities, food, dogs and Guy Sebastian and was all about developing new skills to help yourself and others with their mental health as well as making sure everyone knew that they were not alone and they could seek help. This experience helped me to understand just how many companies that are there for people that need help. Our school can promote mental health more by implementing quizzes and normalising mental health throughout the school. - Isabella Taylor