Do you know a rural woman volunteer within your local government area you would like to acknowledge for their contribution to the community?

NSW Department of Primary Industries’ (DPI) Rural Women’s Network program is seeking your help to uncover female volunteers within NSW rural communities before 30 July 2018.

These worthy women in your electorate will be included in the NSW Department of Primary Industries Hidden Treasures Honour Roll.

Women are so often the backbone of families and communities and without their support many groups including charities, emergency services, the arts, environment, social justice, education and sporting organisations would struggle to survive.

We initiated the Hidden Treasures project to promote and archive the work of these remarkable women.  It is not an award program but a public tribute to the vast number of rural women who give their time and energy to help others across their community.

We hope that you will again support this initiative by calling for nominations from within your local government area as recognition of the valuable work woman volunteers do.

An example of previous Hidden Treasures can be found at 2017 Hidden Treasures Honour Roll.

The 2018 Hidden Treasures Honour Roll will be unveiled at the NSW Rural Women’s Gathering in Merimbula on 20 October 2018.

Nominations can be completed online at Hidden Treasures.  All rural women nominated will be included in the Honour Roll.  

For more information please see the attached media release or if you need help with your nomination call 02 6391 3706.

Please find attached a registration form for the NAIDOC celebration for the northern Illawarra.

Wednesday 18th July, 10-12

Bellambi Surf Lifesaving Club, Morgan Pl. Bellambi

Northen NAIDOC registration form_

Wellways invites you to book a free Well Together Workshop – Staff training, Professional Development, Run a group for people accessing your service

Wellways Australia are rolling out an exciting new project in the Illawarra and Shoalhaven area and we would like to invite your organisation to be involved.

Wellways has been funded by the NDIA to deliver our ‘Well Together’ workshops, to organisations like yours, in order to explore mental health, community inclusion and issues surrounding stigma. The workshops are tailored to the specific organisation and community context of the attendees and aim to generate practical actions that attendees can take to build strong, supportive and welcoming communities for all.

Our workshop runs for 3 hours (shorter version can be negotiated) and includes a presentation from a speaker with direct experience of mental health challenges and recovery. Workshops are suitable for groups of 10 -20 people and there is no charge for hosting a workshop. We will come to you to deliver the workshop at a time that is suitable for you.

If you are interested in booking a workshop or have any further questions, please contact Amy Bertakis on 0417 642 698 or abertakis@wellways.org. Please also feel free to extend this invitation to other groups or organisations you think may be interested.

Background Information

What is the Building Belonging project?

Wellways Australia has been successful in receiving a grant from the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA, the agency responsible for rolling out the NDIS). The grant is known an Information, Linkages and Capacity Building (ILC) National Readiness Grant. The ILC is focused on improving the inclusion of people with disability. It is about creating connections between people with disability and their communities. One way the NDIA wants to help create those connections is through providing grants to organisations such as Wellways.

This funding provides Wellways with the opportunity to train Community Educators with lived experience of mental health challenges to share their personal mental health experiences and to facilitate Well Together workshops.

The project will provide community groups and organisations with:

• A Three Hour ‘Well Together’ workshop including a presentation and Q&A session with a person with direct experience of mental health challenges and recovery
• Phone and email support from Wellways Helpline peer volunteers
• Access to online resources, videos and interactive learning activities
• Helpful information and resources such as tip sheets for implementing inclusive practice, policy templates, resource kits with posters, postcards and fridge magnets

The Well Together Workshop                                    

Workshop Aims

The workshop aims to provide community groups with information, knowledge and skills to be supportive, welcoming and inclusive of people in their community who are affected by mental health issues.

 Who is the workshop for?

This workshop is suitable for all community groups and organisations who want to provide a supportive, welcoming and inclusive environment. This could include sporting groups, hobby groups, workplaces, schools, council organisations, community groups, parents groups, religious groups… any group of people.

No. of attendees – Minimum of 8, maximum of 20 people. (Ideally between 10 -15)

Duration – 3hrs with a break

Module 1 – Exploring and understanding mental health

Module 2 – Supporting recovery and creating inclusive communities

Learning methods

• Information sharing
• Group discussions, exploration, reflection and brainstorming
• Learning from expertise gained through personal experience
• Group and individual activity

Bullying. Family. Friendships. School. Whether we realise it or not, they are all issues that impact on the mental and physical wellbeing of young children.

Now, primary school students will have the opportunity to share their concerns in a fun, interactive way, with a new board game developed by researchers from the University of Wollongong (UOW).

Life Happens Junior, an educational game released this month, enables young children to share their anxieties, work through the changes that may be happening in their lives, and conquer their fears in a safe, supportive environment.  The game follows on from the release two years ago of Life Happens, a board game aimed at encouraging conversations around sexual health in adolescents. Both the adult and junior versions of the game use life-size bodies, or body maps, to guide their characters through relationships and issues.

Associate Professor Kate Senior, from UOW’s School of Health and Society, said the idea for a junior version of Life Happens Junior was inspired by a moment at a conference in Norway. “I was discussing the original Life Happens at a workshop, and Lily, my nine-year-old daughter, was with me at the time. She stood up in the middle of the workshop and said, ‘I want to make my own body map!’ And she started to create her own,” Professor Senior said. “It was a really profound moment because it allowed Lily to talk about experiences she had had with being bullied. It was interesting because she really responded to the method of the game, in which they discuss issues in a hypothetical way.”

Professor Senior, working with PhD student Laura Grozdanovski, enlisted the help of her Lily, and a team of children to create a version of Life Happens that would encapsulate the concerns and worries of their peers.

Thus, Life Happens Junior was born. It was a revealing experience for Professor Senior, an anthropologist, and Ms Grozdanovski, a researcher – both of whom developed the original board game. “It was fascinating working with the children to create the issue cards, because we didn’t realise they felt such pressure. They felt pressure from their parents’ and their teacher’s expectations, but also they were also worried about failing in front of their classmates. “Bullying was an important topic, but the kids were also keen to share the bully’s perspective, because they said no-one ever asks the bullies how they feel. But they also wanted to talk about their parents, their siblings, what it feels like to fight with a friend. “We realised that kids really have so few spaces where they can work through their concerns in a fun, collaborative way.”

The game’s topics include dealing with divorce, fighting with siblings, how to cope with eating lunch alone or being left out of friendship groups, the death of a pet, and overcoming the pressure of a spelling test. The researchers worked with UOW third-year design students to create the fun, vibrant look of the game, with the young audience being their toughest critics. Life Happens Junior is aimed at students in grades three to seven, from all ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds.

Contact lifehappens-sales@uow.edu.au or visit https://socialsciences.uow.edu.au/resources/lifehappens for more information