Things to do

Depression Awareness ACTION

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.