Mental health issues will affect one in four young people every year.
Taking into account that Australia’s LGBT community has twice the rate of psychological distress than its heterosexual counterpart, the urgency behind the mental wellbeing of our youth becomes overwhelmingly bleak.
This stark realisation, compounded with the growing awareness around mental health has become the catalyst for first ever International Youth Mental Health Conference, titled Heads Up! at the end of July in Melbourne.
Experts from across the world addressed the two-day event in a series of lectures and informative seminars covering a wide scale of issues.
Australian of the Year Professor Patrick McGorry said the conference would shed more light on all levels of government and their commitment to tackling mental illness and its consequences.
‘Heads Up! will reinforce the urgent need for collaboration between the mental health sector and the government to provide a holistic and effective approach to helping young people at risk of mental health issues,’ McGorry said.
‘Now is the time for action rather than talk from the Federal and State governments and opposition parties. We need to see real mental health reform, regardless of who is in power,’
La Trobe University researcher Lynne Hillier will present the only LGBT-focused session labelled ‘It’s a grey day today’ during the two-day conference.
Professor Hillier said her presentation would dwell on the experiences of 25 same-sex attracted young Victorians, many of them living in rural areas.
‘It’s really hard for them, access to services and their groups of friends are reduced if they come out,’ Hillier said.
‘They don’t have the anonymity like you would in the city.’
Professor Hillier had been speaking with the group aged between 16 and 21 for two years now and said these young people could never predict when depression and mental illness would strike.
The title for her presentation was a direct quote from one of her participants; a mantra to the constant struggles related to their mental health.
While the outlook in mental health continues to look bleak, Hillier said some of the stories were hopeful and expressed tales of transcendence.
Professor Hillier also announced that the third ‘Writing Themselves In’ report had just closed, having surveyed over 3,000 young same-sex attracted youths in the largest sample-size to date.
Hillier expects this latest WTI report to be launched in October this year, the last report undertaken in 2004.
Benn Dorrington
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