Bellarine Community Health (BCH) will hold a series of free mental health and wellbeing group workshops for adults on the Bellarine.
In addition to running mental health services for young people at Drysdale and headspace Ocean Grove and adult counselling services, BCH is now offering the workshops for local adults.
The pressure on the mental health system is well documented with long wait times for mental health services having an impact on people seeking help.
BCH wants to support the community through early intervention and provide the space between primary care and the hospital system.
The intention of the workshops is to provide information and strategies for people who are struggling to help them build skills to cope with anxiety and depressive symptoms.
“It’s about helping people learn what to do and give them strategies to make a difference in their lives,” retired mental health professional Peter Billings, who will lead the workshops, said.
“The leader is a bit like a coach and the group is the team. The team can brainstorm and share ideas; it’s a format that works well because it’s practical and it gives participants strategies they can take away and work on in their own lives.”
The workshops will cover a range of areas including understanding the importance of behavioural activity and avoidance in the context of anxiety and depression, problem solving, and learning a range of strategies and techniques to help manage symptoms including mindfulness and controlled breathing.
The information and education workshop will run for six weeks, and then the format will repeat, with the themes of the workshops regularly reinforced so that anyone attending one or all the sessions can benefit.
BCH volunteer Garry Royal has been involved in mental health programs for several years and is excited to be part of the team behind the new workshops.
“Sometimes when people are feeling challenged, they don’t know what the entry point is, they don’t know how to get help, and this program is set up, so it allows people that entry point so that they come in and participate and get help to support them in their day to day lives,” he said.
No professional referral is required to attend the workshops, although participants must register by phoning 5253 0400 or emailing youth@bch.org.au
The workshops will run from the BCH Drysdale site in Palmerston St from 9.30am to 11am on Tuesdays.
