scone.com.auCommunity Education Session Tonight
TONIGHT the Where There’s A Will Foundation will be holding a community education session at the Scone High School Multi Purpose Centre.
Where There’s A Will Foundation is bringing a team of experts to Scone to implement a community wide approach to mental health and it requires parents, grandparents, sports coaches, teachers and the whole community to take part.
Pauline Carrigan, the mother of Will Carrigan who committed suicide on Christmas day last year, said it is important for men to attend the community education session tonight and learn to find the words to start the conversation.
“If we are going to create a conversation it has to come from the top down,” said Ms Carrigan.
“Dad’s need to initiate rather than waiting for their children to come to them,” she said.
“We really need men to turn up for the young men of our community,” Pauline Carrigan said.
“Where There’s A Will is bringing experts in positive psychology to Scone and we’re going to present to the community a plan of how we can shift those statistics in this area,” she said.
“We as a community can take the bull by the horns and say let’s do it now, I’m not prepared to wait ten years and put my grandchildren in the same situation my son was put in,” she said.
In an Australian first the foundation is bringing a team of experts to Scone to implement a community wide approach to mental health and requires parents, grandparents, sport coaches, teachers and the whole community to take part.
Professor Toni Noble said individual schools have successfully used the positive education model but this is the first time it is being implemented in a community.
“I think this community will be a lighthouse community that will possibly shine a light on what other communities can achieve, particularly in rural communities who often are quite isolated and often experience real challenges whether it be natural disasters, drought or whatever it might be,” said Prof Noble.
“Just like negative emotion and depression can be contagious, positive emotion and well-being can also be contagious and we hope that that can be contagious within your community,” she said.
- WHEN: 6:30pm – 8.30 pm, Monday, November 28, 2016.
- WHERE: Scone High School Multi-Purpose Centre, Gundy Road, Scone.
- COST: Free
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