There are smiles, raucous laughter and friendly greetings in a large room in a Victorian council office building as a group of teenagers sit down to watch a video presentation.
This is not your usual school excursion — it’s Live4Life (L4L), a mental health education program that equips young people with the skills to save lives in a mental health crisis.
Eli Gourley said he was able to help a friend in need with what he learnt from the program. (Supplied: Warragul and District Specialist School)
Warragul and District Specialist School year 12 student Eli Gourley said the program helped him come to the aid of a friend who was close to taking their own life.
“It was quite scary for me and my friend,” he said.
“But because I was there to help them out they got out of it, very luckily.“
Learning to help
Young Australians are facing a high mental health burden, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
The organisation has identified anxiety and depression as being among the top three most common chronic conditions for people aged between 15 and 24.
L4L teaches students about the importance of maintaining good mental health, strategies to help, and who they can talk to if things get too much.
Participants also develop leadership skills in the process.
Adults learn alongside the young people and between them they build a community with the language and understanding to tackle mental health issues.
Empowered by the skills they have learnt at L4L, Eli and his friends now feel better equipped to deal with mental health crises.
“Me and a few of my friends have been through this,” Eli said.
“We’ve gone down this dangerous curve, but thanks to Live4Life and other people we were able to get out of it.“
‘Could be anything’
Trafalgar High School year 10 student Blake Stone is doing the program for the second year in a row.
It opened his eyes to just how many young people were struggling with their mental health.
Blake Stone says the program has inspired him to follow a different career path to the one he first planned. (Supplied: Baw Baw Shire Council)
“It could be anything … I know quite a few people where it’s family matters and problems,” Blake said.
“Others are just overloaded with schoolwork.“
The program taught him how to talk to people in mental distress and which services to suggest for those in need of professional help.
It has also inspired Blake to work towards becoming a therapist in a children’s hospital.
“I originally wanted to go be a pilot and then I got to come with my friends to Live4Life and my sights on a career changed and slowly became more and more on helping people,” he said.
Ms Lampitt says the program’s benefits are plain to see. (Supplied: Baw Baw Shire Council)
Fighting stigma
Latrobe Regional Health mental health promotion officer Susanne Lampitt was instrumental in bringing the program to Gippsland and said she had seen its positive impact.
Since the Baw Baw iteration of the program began five years ago, more than 3,000 young people in the shire have received mental health education.
The program operates in Latrobe, South Gippsland and Wellington council areas and Ms Lampitt said much of its success was down to open conversations.
“People often say to me, ‘There’s so many young people that are suffering at the moment, it was never like that’ — maybe it was,” she said.
“It was always a very hidden topic … that stigma isn’t quite as bad as it was.”
Susanne Lampitt says the program helps improve the mental health literacy of participants. (Unsplash: Erika Fletcher)
Ms Lampitt said the program helped to normalise mental health issues and made it socially acceptable to discuss them and reach out for support.
“I can assure you the literacy has improved,” she said.
“We’ve certainly had a lot more young people wanting to understand what is in our community in terms of help they can access.
City-country divide
Program chief executive Bernard Galbally got involved after moving to a rural area and learning that rates of mental health challenges were higher in the country than in cities.
“The royal commission into Victoria’s mental health system interim report … showed that more than 63 per cent of young people [in rural areas] that were trying to access a mental health service couldn’t access a service, and that was very different to metro areas,” he said.
Bernard Galbally says a lot of young people participate out of a desire to contribute to their communities. (Supplied: Youth Live4Life)
The program began in 2010 in the Macedon Ranges as a response to an increase in suicide, self-harm, mental illness and youth disengagement.
Mr Galbally said young people were motivated to join the program by their lived experience, watching family members go through struggles, or just wanting to do something positive for the world around them.
“Sometimes it’s just that they’re caring people and they just want to improve their community,” he said.