Written by Agatha Mossakowska, YAM Trainer and Senior Project Officer at Black Dog Institute, working in the LifeSpan Suicide Prevention Trial team
With YAM constantly expanding across areas in New South Wales, Australia, it was only fitting that our next Instructor course would make its way out of the capital cities and take place in a regional town: Lismore! Lismore is the regional centre of the Northern Rivers area of NSW, a lush, mountainous, green part of the state. It neighbours Byron Bay, which became the topic of much discussion after our group realised quite a few celebrities were currently housed there (Zac Efron and Chris Hemsworth, anyone?). I was lucky enough to be invited to be one of the Trainers leading the course (the others were from Lismore and Newcastle), with my journey starting out with a 9-hour drive north of Sydney to settle for a week just shy of the Queensland border.
Our training took place in the lovely Goonellabah Education Centre, where we had lots of space and green. Participants came from a few different areas in the state, spanning Ballina, Kempsey (four hours south of Lismore), Sydney, and Parkes (5 hours west of Sydney). We were a mix of people who worked for the Department of Education and who were getting trained as part of a local suicide prevention collective. Everyone who came from out of the area arrived Sunday and was able to settle in before we commenced Monday morning at 9am sharp.
The week went by quickly. We started off the training getting to know each other and talking about the presentations. There were many keen discussions about young people which were challenging and insightful. Everyone had a chance to practise their Opening Session on Thursday morning and try out the role plays in the afternoon – we definitely had some silly “15-year-olds” in a lot of them! The delicious catering and beautiful venue made the breaks hotly anticipated. At one point I got excited by a creature in a tree that I thought was a cool northern NSW mammal, which just ended up being a humble ringtail possum trying to evade a bunch of currawongs (birds). Sadly no koalas were spotted, despite one of the local Trainers mentioning that they were so commonplace that no one even batted an eye when they made an appearance.
We were all knackered by Friday. Most had travelled and had not been home so we all had things to be excited to return to – our own beds, children, routine, and a new puppy being picked up the following day. A big takeaway was just how impactful the learnings of the training had been, both for the participants (having had their first taste of YAM!) and the Trainers (who’d had the opportunity to pull it all together with a new configuration). There were certainly many ideas about how to work alongside youth to empower them and provide them with tools to support their mental health journeys.
Now, to go out into schools!
