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Community Partnerships
MindMatters proposes that the development of community partnerships will be effective and sustainable when the approach is respectful, inclusive and methodical.
Families play a vital role in building resilience in their children. Schools that are serious about building resilience to promote mental health and wellbeing among their students will give priority to developing partnerships with parents and the broader community.
MindMatters identifies a number of family and community protective factors (see Whole School Matters). School experience shows that working on a topic like mental health and wellbeing for the whole community, brings people together. Participants are able to bring their own experience to the initiative and feel a sense of ownership toward it. Partnerships are built on the basis of the strengths schools have identified within communities and families.
A concerted, negotiated long-term relationship between school and community, such as that represented in the MindMatters Community Partnerships Process, means that these parties plan and undertake strategies together. The MindMatters Community Partnerships Process diagram below describes a process that can be undertaken by a community toward increasing their mental health and wellbeing.
Community Partnerships team
Simon Fewings, Community Partnerships Officer
Mr Simon Fewings was born in Adelaide and is a proud Koori Man. He has family connections in New South Wales and Queensland. Simon resides in Mildura, Victoria with his partner and four children.
Simon worked at TAFE as Department Manager, Program Coordinator, Teacher, Liaison Officer and Support Officer. He has also worked with a local service provider to develop and implement programs and at Principals Australia on the Dare to Lead project. At Dare to Lead Simon developed and delivered Professional Development for school leadership, and engaged school leaders in projects that aim to improve outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, delivering some dramatic improvements.
Simon has only recently undertaken the role of MindMatters National Community Partnerships Officer. Simon is very active in his community playing Rugby League, sponsoring Touch Football Teams and leading trips away. Simon is also an elected community representative to the state government on education and the president of the board of management for a local Koori Community organisation.
Garry Creighton, Consultant
I am a Gomeroi /Kamilaroi Murri Man, born in Moree, North Western NSW.
I am currently employed as an Aboriginal Health Education Officer with the Child, Youth & Family Unit with Tamworth Community Health, Hunter New England Area Health Service based at Tamworth NSW.
Previous roles were Aboriginal Juvenile Justice Officer, DOC’S Officer and Community Development Officer with the Kamilaroi Aboriginal Legal Service. I was involved with the development and facilitation of MindMatters Feeling Deadly not Shame workshops for Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander young people in partnership with Yaamanhaa Aboriginal Men’s Group Tamworth in 2006.
My interests include: Yaamanhaa Aboriginal Men’s Group Tamworth, Board member of the NSW Aboriginal Legal Service, Board member of the Tamworth Aboriginal Medical Service, Volunteer for the Rural Fire Service Tamworth.
Mr Thomas Hampton is a Yankunytjatjara man, his home community is Mimili, and the area around Yulara is his father’s family’s country. Thomas spent quite a bit of his childhood living in Western Australia, attending school in Balga and boarding at the Catholic Agricultural College Bindoon. For the past 11 years he has been back in Central Australia. Thomas’ background includes working as a Liaison Officer at an Aged Care Clinic, retail and hospitality at the Cultural Centre, and community clean-up in Mutitjulu.
Thomas is an Anangu Education Worker (AEW) at the Yulara campus of Nyangatjatjara College and the MindMatters Anangu Education Leader, supporting AEWs at Imanpa and Docker River campuses and in South Australian APY lands communities, to implement MindMatters ’WIRURA KULIRA PALYANI WANKARU NYINANTJAKU – A better way of thinking and acting for keeping safe’.