Mountain Scene
By PHILIP CHANDLER
Queenstown’s Filipino and Brazilian communities and new and expectant parents have
been the first to go through free mental health education work shops, which could be rolled
out nationally.
Southern Wellbeing Trust’s partnering with the national Good Programmes Trust to adapt its ‘GoodYarn’ programme to suit the diverse Whakatipu community.
Using seed funding from various organisations and funds, the southern trust’s been training community-based facilitators to deliver the workshops since December.
They’re being supported by a clinical team, including a GP and a mental health counsellor.
Southern Wellbeing Trust co-founder Anna Dorsey says the workshops help people talk openly about mental health and wellbeing, learn how to recognise symptoms of mental illness and support people experiencing mental distress to access help.
Wednesday, 7 July 2021, 12:00 pm
An innovative pilot project to support the
mental health and resilience of the Queenstown
Lakes community now has the chance to become a national
model thanks to a new strategic partnership.
The
Queenstown-based Southern Wellbeing Trust has joined forces
with the Good Programmes Trust, national provider of the
award-winning, evidence-based mental health education
programme “GoodYarn”. Through the strategic partnership,
the two Trusts are now working to maximise the potential of
a pilot project being run in the Queenstown Lakes community,
with a view to creating a model that more communities across
New Zealand can access over time.