The Duke and Duchess spent time with young mental health ambassadors who have been through the Live4Life Benalla program at the Regional and Rural Youth Voices: Shaping the Future of Mental Health forum.
The forum held at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, with the aim of helping to amplify the voices of young rural and regional Australians on a global stage.
Former Live4Life Benalla crew members Elizabeth and Jayhe-Lee were invited by preventative youth mental health organisation batyr to join a contingent of 16 young people from regional and rural communities across Australia, in a two-day workshop co-facilitated with batyr staff.
The two Benalla mental health ambassadors, along with a number of other past Live4Life crew members from other rural communities, were delighted to meet with Prince Harry and Meghan and share their experiences of challenges faced by young people in rural and regional communities and discuss ideas for a better mental health approach that meets their needs.
“Meeting everyone and us all becoming so connected over the two days was amazing,” Jayhe-Lee said.
Elizabeth said that being able to meet so many like-minded people who were so passionate about mental health and being able to be vulnerable with each other was a big highlight for her.
The visit from the famous couple certainly added a degree of excitement, but the conversations were serious.
The workshop’s purpose was to explore experiences and perspectives on youth mental health in regional, rural and remote communities and turn shared experiences and ideas into practical recommendations and next steps for improving youth mental health in those communities.
Mental health advocacy is a key priority of Prince Harry and Meghan’s newly renamed Archewell Philanthropies organisation, and the attendance of many Live4Life staff and volunteers demonstrated the power of the Live4Life program to equip young people with the skills and knowledge to lead the conversation on how to improve youth mental health and prevent suicide in rural and regional communities.
Central to the Live4Life model is the crew youth leadership component, where young people in Years 9 and 10 volunteer as mental health ambassadors in rural and regional communities.
Many like Benalla’s Elizabeth and Jayhe-Lee go on to join an alumni group, Crew4Life, where they continue their development as advocates and spokespeople. Some of these undertake further training as crew champions, such as Talon and Laura, who took leading roles in the batyr workshop.
Live4Life stands alongside batyr in calling for greater investment in youth mental health prevention programs.
That need is particularly acute in rural and regional communities where the suicide rate is more than 50 per cent higher than metropolitan areas, and where six out of 10 young people cannot access the services they need.
Only one per cent of national mental health funding is spent on prevention — and yet, the evidence proves prevention works.
23°C