Over 300 locals upskilled on mental wellbeing thanks to community programme!

The headlight team hit a big milestone this month with over 300 people now having participated in the GoodYarn Community programme.

The innovative community-based, mental health education programme was designed to upskill the local community to better support their mental health and mental wellbeing following the COVID related events of recent years.

Since its launch in 2021, the programme has enabled over 15 peer facilitators trained to deliver mental health education to neighbours, volunteers and whanau across the Whakatipu.

The GoodYarn community programme has continued to grow in strength thanks to funding from donor organisations including Central Lakes Trust, Community Trust South and Lotteries, among others. In addition, WellSouth and Te Hau Toka Southern Wellbeing Group have funded the team to bring mental health education to parenting peer supporters and also volunteers, NGOS and small businesses through their small business workshops, click here.

Feedback from the community continues to be positive and to date 100% of participants would recommend the programme to other people - which is a huge testament to the approach and hard work of the headlight team to ensure the programme is hitting the mark with participants and communities.

Recent workshop participants echo this finding with comments including “"The opportunity to have a safe space to discuss this kaupapa, ask questions, and feel more confident in supporting mental wellbeing."

"Our community has been under huge pressure these past few years and reaching the 300participants milestone tells us that the community really wants this education, and it's clearly filling a gap. Also it means that we've been able to bring important information to some of our community who may not have been accessing clinical services or support. This means the wider community can be better equipped to respond to their needs and our local people can be supported to step up their support and provide practical assistance before things escalate further," says Anna Dorsey,

"We look forward to continuing to deliver these programmes in coming months and encourage people who are working with volunteers and small businesses to take this unique opportunity to access the subsidised education to help benefit their clients, network and wider community."

The team are focusing on bringing the results of the pilot programme to stakeholders and funders in coming months. In the meantime you can read more about the GoodYarn workshop, click here.