16-Year-Old Brisbane Student Launches ‘You Are Not Alone’ Mental Health Campaign

While this is a little (okay, substantially) different from what is usually posted here, as someone who has battled with mental health issues for a while, I felt this was a message worth sharing. This week, a mental health initiative has been launched by Tom Price, a 16-year-old student from Villanova College in Brisbane Coorparoo suburb. This campaign was launched today with the sharing of the above video, and will be expanded into a wider project (at least at Villanova College) including: creating spaces for students to have a break if needed at school, as well as providing basic mental health training for staff and student leaders at the College.

Read more about the project below:

Price is a confident, outgoing young man who is heading into Year 12 as a senior leader, while at the same time producing honey from his own hives and working as a part-time volunteer lifeguard. 

Last year when his own busy social, school and sporting routines disappeared, (thanks COVID!), he found himself struggling for the first time with his mental health. 

When he looked around there wasn’t anything that particularly resonated with him, or his peers, in terms of normalising or supporting someone with mental health issues.  Now having found the help he needed Tom has set about creating a mental health campaign he hopes will start conversations, normalise the struggle and create a positive change in student mental health statistics.

“I knew that if I was having a hard time dealing with all the COVID changes and pressures that come with school, family and general life I was surely not the only one.  So, I based the campaign around the words ‘you are not alone’.   Words that when you are having a tough time and feeling isolated are pretty powerful,” said Price.

Tom and his team (fellow Villanova students Lachlan Bremner, Riley Richards and Cameron Wallis) set out to find a broad range of artists, athletes and musicians that he felt would resonate with his peers.  He was blown away by the response from these people – who were not only willing to listen to him – but were prepared to put their own faces and words to the campaign to remind people they “are not alone”.

Always a good reminder that you are not alone, and that whether you are a student going into your final exams next year, have just had your Guard of Honour at school and emerging into the realm of adulthood or are just facing the challenges in life – taking care of yourself and seeking help when necessary is always a wise thing to do.

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