Things to do

Depression Awareness ACTION

At any one time, around 8550 people under 18 in Australia suffer from clinical depression. In order to help those with depression, we need to talk about it, and to talk abotu it, we need to lose the stigma attached to adolescent depression: here's how you can help.

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Submitted by: Leah | 2 comments

1 in 5 people between 15-24 will experience depression at some point- that's up to 8550 people under 18 years at any one moment in Australia alone (BeyondBlue; Depression in young people: A practitioner's guide, Aust. gov't.). In order to help those with depression, we need to talk about it, and to talk about it, we need to lose the stigma attached to adolescent depression.

Talk About It!!

  • Hold a Depression Awareness Seminar at your school or uni in which you get your local counselling centres and maybe even a couple of Reachout! or BeyondBlue representatives to attend, and if you know anyone who has experienced depression, they might like to speak about their personal experiences with mental health?
  • Write an article for your school or uni newsletter, or your local paper
  • Spread awareness online by speaking about your personal experiences of mental illnesses (including depression) on popular youth websites such as http://www.reachout.com.au and http://www.beyondblue.org.au; you never know how many people you'll help!
  • Spread awareness by spreading merchanidse: you can order lots of fun things like posters, stickers, temporary tattoos, wristbands and postcards to stick around your school or uni campus, or your hometown from:

Reachout: http://www.reachout.com.au/default.asp?ti=1139

YBBlue: http://www.beyondblue.org.au/ybblue/index.aspx?lin...

Read about it

What better way to lower the stigma and ignorance of Depression than by reading about it, and encouraging your fellow peers to do the same? Here's a few websites to get you started:







Fundraising

Support those who support you- rope your local schools, universities and businesses into donating to institutions that help young people with depression and other mental health disorders such as:





Get political

Write a letter to your local government (you might even like to start a petition) urging them to distribute some of the federal Budget funding towards Reachout!
Discuss Now 2 comments

LNsotherpersonality 27-Nov-2007

Hi. It's a great page you have got going with lots of brilliant ideas. You have given me some inspiration for some things I could do to futher my "mission"! I think one of the most important thing's we can do is to erase stigma around mental health and get the message out there.

jassyobe 18-Oct-2006

Hi, I just wanted to say thanks for all this info. There are so many of todays youths out there who have depression in any degree and I think its hard knowing where to turn (experiencing a few roller coaster years myself). Each outlet and support person/organisation goes a long way to providing much needed assistance as it's something thats not often talked about (especially with mates). I would like to add another website that profiles therapists, psychologists etc around australia - www.goodtherapy.com.au - which promotes not only the practitioners but has a forum, book shop, calender and lots of other stuff. Excellent site to explore what "Good Therapy" constitutes and why it is important.