Changing Minds, Headlight helping the Queenstown lived experience community to stand tall

Headlight was thrilled to host a special Changing Minds - Rākau Roroa (Tall Trees) workshop in Queenstown this October for members of the Queenstown community.

This unique programme aims to empower people with Lived Experience of mental health challenges to become ‘Tall Trees’, so they can use their personal experience and share their stories safely in their own communities. Their stories are viewed as a taonga/gift that can inspire others, positively change attitudes and reduce prejudice and discrimination towards people with a history of mental distress.

This valuable training programme has been developed by Changing Minds, a national not-for-profit organisation, that works in the area of wellbeing services, advocacy, human rights and health policy. Their work is to listen, collect and activate the strategic voice of lived experience. 

Headlight invited Changing Minds to bring the workshop to Queenstown to support its growing lived experience workforce, as well as others in the local community, to help them know how to safely and responsibly share their own stories of Lived Experience.

Anna Dorsey, Chief Executive of Headlight said the workshop was incredibly valuable for participants and our wider Queenstown community: 

“We know first hand the power that sharing lived experience can have in helping to build understanding, connection and reduce prejudice when working with communities. Being able to attend this workshop will have a significant flow on effect by helping to keep our audience and lived experience community safe when bringing our personal stories and journeys into the public arena.“

The workshop focused on important topics such as the shifting language around mental distress and mental health, legal frameworks and what positive action people could take in the face of prejudice and discrimination. The training was led by facilitators with their own lived experience of mental distress, which helped to create a supportive and safe environment for participants to take their own learning journey. 

“I felt that this workshop really helped us all to shift the way we view mental health, not just through a medical lens, but more so seeing it as a part of the human condition and finding hope and value in all our experiences, wherever we are on our journey, “said Anna.

To find out more about the Rākau Roroa - Tall Trees workshop visit 

https://www.changingminds.org.nz/currentprojects/rakauroroa

To express an interest in upcoming online workshops, email: rakauroroa@changingminds.org.nz