Mental Health Matters
Winners 2023

Outloud’s Muslim Peers Project is for young queer or questioning Muslims experiencing mental health distress. They provide free one-on-one peer support (chat, phone or face-to-face one-to-one or group) for queer Muslims, also providing them with a safe space to share their stories and not feel alone. They host a collaborative Instagram page

One Vision Production and MPOWER offer innovative solutions for supporting young people, utilising their passions and interests as the basis for change. Too often, services are created without consultation with the young person, leading to programs that fail to engage and inspire youth. OVP is different. Mark has a unique understanding of how to connect with young people that would otherwise fall through the cracks of the current education system and often end up in juvenile detention centres. Preventing initial incarceration is part of the work, but education of youth already incarcerated to prevent further contact with the system and the possibility of intergenerational incarceration, is of equal importance.

The Kalypi Paaka Mirika healing program was informed by the community safety research project CSRP, a study implemented through a partnership between MM and University of NSW schools of psychology and psychiatry that commenced in 2008.

Soul and Wellness Encounters is an initiative dedicated to connecting, educating, and empowering women to live a healthier life while encouraging community participation. A series of interactive activities facilitated by professionals and experts in the holistic health space that provides a safe space to learn, share and practice.

Getting on track in Time (Got It!) provides early intervention to children with behavioural challenges through a social and emotional approach. It targets children aged 5-8 in public schools and their parents. In 2022 Greenhill Public School (GHPS) had 24 children who all identified as First Nations. Parental engagement was challenging. Through an extensive collaborative approach Got It! delivered an adapted program focusing on inclusivity, culturally appropriateness, trauma informed and led by an Aboriginal clinician, supported by an Aboriginal Peer worker and by non-Aboriginal staff. Professional development was undertaken by school staff. Parents and carers attended 3 sessions.

Recovery 2gether, One Door’s purpose-driven approach that applies to their whole organisation – from frontline staff to the Executive, endorsed and championed by the Board. R2G creates people-centred systems, invests in, supports staff, and guides how they recruit, train, and retain their teams. R2G includes practices that support staff to create psychologically safe teams, use non-violent/compassionate communication and make ‘consent-based’ decisions. At One Door there is no Head Office, but there is a Support Hub. The Support Hub guides frontline teams and carries out the organisation’s corporate responsibilities.

The My Drought Story project was a digital media and awareness campaign that was implemented across previously drought affected areas of NSW. The project encouraged people in drought impacted communities to share their experiences of drought through the submission of images and stories. There was a focus on images that show ‘during’ and ‘after’ the drought. These contributions were then shared on specifically designated social media platforms. Selected images were then collated into a book- My Drought Story, which was launched and gifted to contributors, local libraries and partnering agencies. Through the sharing of the images and stories, a large and diverse number of individuals were able to reflect on their experience of the drought and how it impacted their mental health and wellbeing.

Admissions + MAD Poetry are two intersecting lived experience projects – MAD Poetry and the anthology that grew from thus project, Admissions: Voices Within Mental Health.

David Stavanger is a poet, cultural producer, and editor and with lived mental health experience. He is also well known for his work with community writing projects that amplify marginalised voices and lived experience writers including Brotherhood of the Wordless (writers with autism precluded from speech), School of Hard Knocks – Word on the Street (writers with mental health and/or substance abuse issues), and since 2019 via MAD Poetry for which he is the lead producer of the project at Red Room Poetry. ‘

We are delighted to announce that the winner of the 2023 NSW Mental Health Commissioner’s Community Champion Award for an organisation is Nanna’s Touch Community Connections Incorporated.