Cootamundra’s Bronte Johnson has been selected as a national youth advisor for Australian youth mental health organisation, Womn-Kind. Photo: Supplied.
Cootamundra’s Bronte Johnson has been named as a national youth advisor at one of the country’s leading mental health organisations, Womn-Kind.
Womn-Kind focuses on providing effective well-being support to young and adolescent girls across the country. As an advisor for Womn-Kind, Ms Johnson will have the opportunity to voice her opinions about the state of mental health of Australia’s youth to parliamentarians and politicians.
“As a youth advisor, I’ve had the opportunity to speak to the NSW Minister for Youth and Mental Health, the Honourable Rose Jackson,” she said.
“As someone who has grown up in a rural setting, I expressed to Minister Jackson the importance of mental health intervention in rural and remote areas where rural psychologists have a longer waitlist and, in my case, there being no psychologists closer than an hour’s drive away.
“If it wasn’t for Womn-Kind I’m not sure that I would have ever had the chance to have my voice heard by someone so high in government about challenges that myself and the people around me face on a daily basis.’’
Ms Johnson said it was important for different levels of government to hear the voices of young people when making and implementing strategies and providing funding for mental health resources.
“Young people need to have a voice,” she said.
“If they don’t have a direct voice on the matters that they are experiencing, how does the government know how to support them best?
‘’When my best friend was diagnosed with cancer at the start of Year 11, I didn’t think the way I was feeling was important enough to speak to someone. With the stress of my senior years and the unknown of such a devastating diagnosis, I was left feeling lost and confused.
“I found it challenging to regulate and express my emotions. Then I found Womn-Kind. From a distance and anonymously I accessed support from Womn-Kind and other girls my age that may have been experiencing something similar. I was able to receive this support from the comfort of my own home instead of having to drive over an hour to be told that the waiting list was longer than six months.’’
Womn-Kind founder and director Ruby Riethmuller said the mental health of young people was a national crisis, with recent data Womn-Kind collected showing that 81 per cent of young people had weekly thoughts that “they aren’t good enough”.
“There is an urgent need to rethink mental health support and systems in this country but to create sustained impact and genuine success, we must involve the voices of young people in the conversation,” she said.
“When it comes to designing services and changing systems that impact young people, they equally deserve a seat at the table. There is an opportunity here to learn from them directly, about the impact it has on them. I do believe that part of the solution needs to be empowering young people, with tools, resources and knowledge to make healthy and positive decisions for themselves.’’
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