Let’s Talk Anxiety Sutherland Shire

In May, WayAhead collaborated with South Eastern Sydney LHD to host a Let’s Talk About Anxiety Sutherland Shire Forum and to deliver three Small Steps Childhood Anxiety seminars to the community.

On 2 May, more than 100 people attended the Let’s Talk About Anxiety Sutherland Shire forum, including people working in the health and education sectors as well as individuals attending to find out more for themselves, their family and friends.

Our keynote speaker, Monique Shipp, Clinical Psychologist Registrar, presented information about anxiety disorders and her clinical specialty, Selective Mutism. WayAhead’s Paul Leonard spoke about his personal experience with anxiety, as did our other compelling lived experience speaker, Alison Li. Alison’s partner Alex Li spoke about his role as carer and supporter for Alison an extremely valuable perspective that resonated strongly with the audience. Lived experience stories help us achieve our goal to reduce stigma surrounding mental health conditions in the community.

We were joined at the forum by local mental health services in Sutherland Shire who explained how to access their programs: CESPHN, headspace; Interrelate-Counselling, Kurranulla Aboriginal Corporation, Lifeline/Wesley Mission, Lilli Pilli Counselling,

NSW Public Mental health Service, One Door Mental Health/Head to Health and Orana NSW Inc.

Over 50 people attended our three Small Steps Childhood Anxiety seminars for Sutherland Shire on 17 May. Parent/carers, teachers, health and education workers learned about WayAhead’s ‘’Small Steps’’ process to reducing the impact of childhood anxiety.

As a result, we have connected with local schools and booked Small Steps seminars for individual school staff and parent/carer communities.

Providing community forums and Small Steps seminars allows WayAhead to take a whole of community approach where we can all work together to reduce the impact of anxiety in families and communities throughout NSW.

“WayAhead’s adventures in Orange!”

We recently held a Let’s Talk Anxiety Orange community forum and delivered Small Steps Childhood Anxiety seminars to school communities.

More than 50 people attended the Let’s Talk Anxiety Orange forum. Following a thought provoking welcome to country from Uncle Neil ingram who talked about Wiradjuri country and the people of the three rivers, the Mayor of Orange launched the forum. He spoke of his personal experience of anxiety.

Our keynote speaker, Monique Shipp, Clinical Psychologist Registrar talked about anxiety disorders and her clinical specialty, Selective Mutism. WayAhead’s Paul Leonard spoke about his personal experience of anxiety, and we heard the perspective of a parent and her journey as a carer of children with anxiety. The opportunity to hear these individual stories went along way to meeting our goal of reducing the stigma surrounding mental health conditions in the community.

We were joined by local mental health services in Orange who explained how to access their programs: headspace; Marathon Health-New Access/Strong Minds; Stride-Like Mind and Carer’s Gateway-Live Better.

Our local and newly trained volunteer anxiety support group co- facilitators met with WayAhead staff.  We thank Neami National and Gabby Pawley, Orange Service Manager for provision of a space for the new Orange Anxiety support group to meet.

Monique Brunello, School and Community Education Lead, delivered three Small Steps Childhood Anxiety seminars- for School Learning Support Officers at Glenroi Heights Public School and for teachers, parents and carers at Cudal Public School where local teachers were joined by colleagues from Eugowra.

Providing community forums and Small Steps seminars allows WayAhead to take a whole of community approach where we can all work towards reducing the impact of anxiety in our families and communities throughout NSW.

In partnership with the South Eastern Sydney Local Area Health District, Liz Kirov, Small Steps facilitator talked about anxiety and the how Small Steps seminars assist teachers and parents. Services and organisations represented included the Public Health Network- Central and Eastern Sydney, Safe Haven, Stride, Psychological Support Services (CESPHN)- Head to Health, St George and Sutherland Mental Health Interagency.

Merrick Powell, Clinical Psychologist and Small Steps facilitator, talked about anxiety disorders and services attending and networking with the community included Head to Health, One Door Mental Health, Yourside Carers Gateway, Carers NSW, Carers Advocacy Group.

We heard from Mark McGrath from Carer Gateway at Port Macquarie as well as our keynote speaker, Dr Rocco Crino, clinical psychologist. Local services also included, headspace, Neami National, Lifeline, Carer Gateway and Carers NSW attended to meet the community.

What attendees said

“Dr Rocco Crino had me captivated the whole time”

“ The best part of the event was listening to personal stories – relevant to understanding impact for individuals”

“It was good hearing about my anxiety disorder and knowing what other coping strategies there are“

“Hearing about local services I never knew existed”

The WayAhead Anxiety Team went to Bega on the 18th March.

“Thank you, this has been a very great way to find out about services available in the Bega area” Forum attendee

“Great to be able to attend […] A great opportunity to be able to showcase the extent of services actively involved in support” Forum attendee

You can contact on (02) 9339 6003 to express interest in a forum in your local area. You can also subscribe to our eNewsletter to keep informed about our upcoming events.