GoodYarn Community Pilot
April 21 to June 22
GoodYarn Community Pilot
An innovative peer-to-peer education programme was delivered in the Queenstown Lakes District from April 2021 to June 2022, that has proven to be a successful model for improving mental health knowledge and skills, particularly amongst hard to reach and ethnically diverse communities.
The aim of the ‘GoodYarn Community’ pilot programme was to increase mental health literacy in the Queenstown Lakes community, particularly amongst priority populations such as migrant communities, new parents and small businesses who were under increasing mental pressure following the COVID related events of 2020 – 2022.
The project was designed using an established, evidence-based mental health literacy programme called GoodYarn that is delivered in corporate and rural settings. The pilot team trialled delivering the workshops in an ethnically diverse community, including running workshops for different migrant audiences using their native language and in culturally appropriate settings to make it as effective and accessible as possible.
Completed by Anna Williams, a research consultant supported by the Lotteries Community Internship Programme, the report highlights the value of upskilling local, non-clinical, ethnically diverse community members to deliver mental health education to their peers.
Overall, the report emphasises how the pilot programme has had a potentially deep and lasting impact on the mental wellbeing of the community.
Click here to read the full pilot report.
Click here to read the executive summary.