HEADSPACE Swan Hill held workshops at primary schools around the region to build connections with young people and promote this year’s theme of “Pause. Reflect. Reconnect”.
Manager Hayley Neuschafer said the mindfulness activities of rock painting, crafting chatterboxes and making wellbeing plans were well received in the schools.
“The focus was to engage with schools and communities that don’t have easy access to services and that haven’t had headspace outreach before,” she said.
“It’s important to build connections and put faces to names of local staff in their familiar school settings, and especially for primary school students before they start to go through those transitional difficulties.
“It was really good to engage with young people and create that relationship between them and headspace to make it more likely that they will seek out our service if they need it in the future.”
The “Pause. Reflect. Reconnect.” theme is important to start building a mental wellbeing toolkit and resilience as they start to encounter challenges, Ms Neuschafer said.
“Pausing is providing a quiet, calm space to stop in, that gives an opportunity to reflect, to think about the situation and how to address it, and how to reconnect with their support network and the things that make them feel good,” she said.
“It’s important to build these skills because so many of us have really busy lives and taking five or ten minutes to stop and be present, reflect, and connect with our communities, specific and our pets can keep us engaged with the things that bring us joy.”
Ms Neuschafer said the students even at a primary school level had well developed mental health literacy, a result of existing mental health awareness programs in schools.
The theme will continue into the events headspace will hold for Indigenous people in the community, including the Youth Yarn Up event organised in partnership with the National Wellbeing Alliance for youth within the community.
Youth Yarn Up will be at headspace at 11 Pritchard Street from 3:30pm on October 30, and will include activities such as painting and basketball, a yarning circle for a safe and culturally grounded space for open conversations, and free food and drinks.
