FEATURE
Marcus Minds.
Mind blowing By Alannah Halloran. Foundation Manager
Mental health, wellbeing, wellness, health and resilience are all words and phrases used to describe someone’s mental, emotional and social capabilities. As we are all too aware, agriculture is associated with a unique set of stressors that include reliance on unpredictable, and often uncontrollable environmental, financial and/or business pressures. These situational stressors have flow on effects throughout rural communities dependent on farming.
College Principal and graduate, Dr Simon Livingstone said, “The aim of the program is to advance students’ understanding of resilience, stress, and well-being. Since the program was implemented, students have learnt the importance of personal reflection and how to develop a ‘toolkit of strategies’ that can be used now and well into the future. Students are also made aware of their role within a community and the many resources available to them and others.”
Sadly, the rate of people taking their own lives is almost double in rural areas compared with urban. (National Rural Health Alliance, 2017)
Fast forward five years, through the fundraising work of the College Foundation and the desire to provide graduates with access to continued learning, the concept of a graduate wellbeing program was born.
But is our mental health simply a mindset? Can we be better equipped to understand and manage our state of mind more capably and confidently? Through education, is it possible to better prepare, navigate our way around and through “tough times,” and come out stronger, happier, and mentally richer at the other end?
It wasn’t until early 2019, when graduate Tim McGavin AdCertAA’94 and DipAA’99 Executive Chairman and Founder of Laguna Bay, one of the largest privately owned agricultural funds in the world, reached out to the Foundation to discuss how they might be able to support the College in some way, that the concept became a reality.
In 2015, in response to an increased awareness of the varied hardships many faced in agriculture, Marcus Oldham developed and integrated a health and resilience program into course curriculum, across all year groups.
18
