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Nauiyu burying the stigma of mental health

Safety and Wellbeing
Image of a flag with the title 'mental health expo'

The remote Northern Territory community of Nauiyu is tackling mental health issues face on, organising a sports day that got adults together to openly talk about mental health.  

It’s refreshing to see the remote community of Nauiyu, two hundred kilometres south of Darwin, openly talk about mental health issues.

Nauiyu’s Mental Health Committee realised they had to do something different to encourage people to learn about mental health. They decided to hold an athletics event for children and young adults, featuring foot races, longest kick of a football competition, spear throwing and a tug of war between the boys and girls.

And according to local Donna Sullivan, it was the right decision.

“To say it was successful would be an understatement,” said Donna, who is Nauiyu’s Indigenous Engagement Officer (IEO).

“We had huge community representation, with about three hundred locals, or seventy per cent of Nauiyu’s population, attending and there were many government departments, agencies and NGOs who made the long journey here to talk to locals about mental health and what help is available,” she said.

Additionally, the Vic Daly Regional Council and local businesses pitched in providing event prizes, while locals cooked up magpie geese, bush damper and a side of beef in a traditional underground oven.

Donna said that making Nauiyu’s children the centre of the mental health initiative was the key to the day’s success.

“We knew if we could get the kids interested in the events the parents would come along, and they did in huge numbers, egging their kids on,” Donna said.

While their kids were competing, a lot of locals were talking about mental health and suicide prevention, including, for the first time, young men.

“We’ve held community meetings about suicide in the past but many young men and teenage boys didn’t attend as they think they might get blamed for the suicides,” Donna said.

“There have been a lot of youth suicides recently but since we’ve been talking about it more, the numbers are dropping.”

"We’ve also been talking more about domestic violence issues and gambling addictions, both of which can lead to depression and self-harm,” she said. 

Find out more

The Australian Government funded headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation provides mental health and wellbeing support, information and services to young people aged 12-25 who are at risk, of developing a mild to moderate mental illness.

The headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation also provides the headspace School Support programme, which works with schools in the event of a suicide to minimise the distress caused to staff and students.

MindMatters is the national mental health initiative for Australian secondary schools. It aims to increase a school’s capacity to implement a ‘whole-school’ approach to mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention. 

The MindFrame national media initiative is an Australian Government funded programme that provides access to up-to-date, evidence-based information to support the reporting, portrayal and communication about suicide and mental illness.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project is evaluating the effectiveness of existing suicide prevention strategies and will report to the Australian Government in late 2015.