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MindMatters Youth Congress

Youth Congress 2009

On 28 June, 78 students and teachers from 13 schools across Australia came together in Sydney for the second MindMatters Youth Congress.

The Congress extended the mental health and wellbeing work instigated by students who attended the first Youth Congress in Melbourne last year.

At that time, the students identified a need to have ‘a structure that allows students’ ideas in mental health promotion to become realities’. MindMatters responded by initiating the development of a new resource: Supporting Student-Led Initiatives in Building Mentally Healthy Schools – A Toolkit for ‘Taking Action’.

At this year’s Congress, the MindMatters Youth Empowerment team led participants through a discussion of issues and initiatives surrounding student leadership of mental health and wellbeing in schools, prepared for their participation in the MindMatters National Conference the next day, and conducted an extended consultation on the new resource.
MindMatters would like to acknowledge Roger Holdsworth, who has been compiling the resource and supporting its development, and who was also on hand to incorporate the ideas put forward by the young people and adults at this year’s Congress.

The purpose of ‘Supporting Student-Led Initiatives in Building Mentally Healthy Schools’ is to:

provide practical processes for adults to engage in and support students’ initiatives
support partnerships between staff and students in mental health promotion
provide steps for both staff and students to work toward goals and monitor progress and outcomes.

The contents of the resource include:

Preparation – within schools to support student-led initiatives
Getting started – forming a group and building a team
What you know and need to know – investigating and finding out about your issue
Working out what you want – developing a shared vision, objectives and goals
Planning your action – working out how to achieve goals
Taking action – implementing your action idea
Looking back, moving forward – checking what has been achieved and learnt, and planning again.

In examining and commenting on this draft resource, students and others at the Youth Congress were able to provide valuable insights into what should be included and how it could be used, and to gain ideas for their own processes.

The resource will be rolled out through the MindMatters Youth Empowerment Process.

Inaugural Youth Congress 2008

MindMatters is committed to supporting the participation of young people in school-based mental health promotion.

On 9 September 2008, an inaugural gathering of young people across Australia was held in Melbourne. The MindMatters Youth Empowerment presenter team facilitated the events of this day. The presenters and 68 of their peers discussed the role that young people can play in promoting mental health in schools.

Creating connections session

There were five sessions held throughout the day, commencing with a session entitled ‘creating connections’ that developed a supportive atmosphere to encourage participation.

Multimedia session

This session was designed to explore participants’ perceptions and understandings of mental health through the use of multimedia. There were six multimedia stations, where participants used media to express their thoughts about mental health and wellbeing and reflect on what their schools were doing to encourage students to promote it. Each school or organisation group developed a poster that highlighted what was happening in their school community.

Evaluation session

Participants discussed what they believed were the helpers and blockers of student leadership in mental health promotion. Some of their thoughts are listed below.

Helpers

Support from the whole school community, including supportive systems.
Opportunities to build relationships between staff and students.

Blockers

Doubts as to the ability of young people to lead mental health and wellbeing.
A lack of confidence on the part of young people when it came to assuming leadership roles.

Ideas and solutions

Use initiatives like the MindMatters Youth Empowerment Process (YEP).
Review the process for electing student leaders to ensure that there is a proper cross-section from student community.

Policy suggestion statements

The day concluded with participants developing a series of statements in response to the following questions. The statements were presented to school principals and will be used to inform future school policy.

Why should students lead the promotion of mental health and wellbeing?
In what ways can students lead?
Which students should be involved?
How can we encourage student involvement?
What support is required for student involvement to occur?
What can schools and supporting adults do to encourage student involvement?