By KATRINA BRANDON
LATROBE Youth Space hosted Youth Insearch for its first ever ‘Brighter Days’ event.
Joining Youth Insearch and Latrobe Youth Space was Gippsland Centre Against Sexual Assault (GCASA), headspace, Gippsland Trades and Labour Council, Latrobe Regional Health and Latrobe City Council, coming together to acknowledge Youth Suicide Week (running from Monday, February 17 to Sunday, February 23).
End Youth Suicide Week is a campaign that encourages young people to defy the stigma associated with mental health and openly talk about suicide with their friends, families and communities.
At Latrobe’s Brighter Days event, about 30 Latrobe youth enjoyed chatting with local services and participating in a range of gaming activities.
Youth Insearch’s Regional Manager Victoria, Maree May, told the Express: “This is the first year we have done it in Victoria”.
“It’s about getting the word out to people about where they can go or where they can help their young person connect to services and organisations that help support young people who are feeling suicidal.
“We love the youth space because it is a safe place for young people in the Valley to come and connect and to talk to someone safe. We thought this was the perfect venue to hold basically an information session for young people who are potentially feeling suicidal, where they can come as a safe place to come and talk to somebody.
“It is really wonderful to see all of the different services coming together to help share directly with youth what it is they do to support young people.”
Brighter Days launched in 2024 and was held at the end of End Youth Suicide Week to show young people who are struggling with mental health that they are seen, and remind them that ‘brighter days’ are on the way.
Youth Insearch is dedicated to helping young people access the face-to-face support they need to improve their mental wellbeing and recover from trauma. Since 1985, Youth Insearch has supported youth mental health and runs weekend workshops, weekly support groups, and individual support groups for people aged 12-25 to connect and develop life skills.
“We run a program that is specifically youth-led,” Ms May said.
“Our program is full of youth leaders, and they run weekend workshops, weekly support group, and we do one-on-one case management for young people that are struggling with different issues, whether it might be that they just aren’t connecting socially with their peers or be a young person who has experienced trauma and abuse.
“Youth Insearch supports them in doing online training days, and then if they progress to the next stage, Youth Insearch flies them to Sydney to do leaders training. They will learn public speaking, mental health issues, and leadership styles. It is a really positive project. It is super supportive for youth. We work with 12 to 25-year-olds. The weekend workshops are aimed at 14 to 20-year-olds.”
Youth Insights is working with eight Gippsland region campuses, and looks forward to collaborating with more.
“Secondary schools are working really hard to help support vulnerable children,” Ms May said.
“The more we work collaboratively and help support vulnerable youth, the better. That is one of the reasons why we wanted to have a youth event where we wanted to have heaps of youth attend, and we also wanted to have those other supportive services come along and share with young people what they do.
“This area is really high needs. We have a cost-of-living crisis; we have a homelessness crisis.
“We want to help support young people to self-identify what they need support with, and we want to help them learn how to self advocate, and we want to support them into linking them into the appropriate services that can, for example, if they are homeless, we want to be able to support them into engaging with those services.”
If you or someone you know is struggling, contact:
Lifeline: 13 11 14, or lifeline.org.au;
Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636, or beyondblue.org.au;
Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800, or kidshelpline.com.au, and;
Headspace: 1800 650 890, or headspace.org.au
