RECORDED Thu 06 Nov 2025
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
mental health, youth mentoring, school connections, complex health conditions, early intervention, peer relationships, family support, mental health challenges, education impact, stigma reduction, equity in education, mental health data, school attendance, caregiving roles, policy solutions
SPEAKERS: Megan Gilmour, Lucy Snowball
Megan Gilmour 00:00
This episode is proudly brought to you by the TPG Telecom Foundation, dedicated to creating opportunities to improve the health, wellbeing and education of Australian communities in need.
Hi, I’m Megan Gilmour, MissingSchool, Co-founder and CEO, and this is Live & Learn. This is the podcast that unearths insights at the intersection of health and education, building a powerful alliance to keep kids with complex health conditions connected to school from anywhere.
The podcast is recorded on Ngunnawal land, and we acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional owners of this land and the land on which you’re listening.
Welcome to our weekly webcast, a place to zero in on the interplay between health and education and to amplify the voices of those supporting school students to navigate their educational journeys despite complex health challenges.
And today, we’re joined by Lucy Snowball, Data and Youth Insights Director at the Raise Foundation, a national youth mentoring charity that improves youth mental health and wellbeing by connecting trained and trusted mentors with young people in Australian secondary schools who are at risk of disengagement.
With over 20 years of experience across government and the not-for-profit sectors, Lucy is a data and evaluation expert passionate about using evidence to drive better outcomes. At Raise she leads program evaluation and ensures the youth voice is embedded across the organisation. Welcome, Lucy. We’re so excited to have you on Live & Learn
Lucy Snowball 01:42
Thank you so much. Megan. I’m really pleased to be here.
Megan Gilmour 01:47
So today we’re here to talk about supporting school connections for students with complex medical or mental health challenges. So, let’s head to the first question.
Lucy, tell us how mental health and wellbeing challenges impact kids and why it’s something every Australian needs to know and care about.
Lucy Snowball 02:09
Thanks, Megan, I think we’d say at Raise that mental health and wellbeing challenges affect every aspect of a young person’s life, particularly in that early transition period into early high school, which is where we do most of our support and work.
We know that mental health challenges can impact a young person’s confidence, a young person’s connection with their peers, their relationships at home, with their family, at school, with their teachers, with their community as well, and we also know that it can impact their engagement with education.
Now, combined, all of these can lead to lifelong impacts. We know that education and mental health are such important predictors of long-term access to education, long term good health, long term social connection.
So really, those challenges, starting early, if they’re not addressed, if young people are not supported, can continue and can amplify into later life. Every Australian should care about this, because we know that these impacts are widespread.
We know that about one in three young people every year in Australia struggle with mental health challenges. We know that those challenges impact them, but we also know it impacts their families and their peers at school and our community.
Megan Gilmour 03:50
Yes, definitely something every Australian needs to know and care about. And ultimately, one in three is a large number, even if it was lower than that it’s important, given all of the things that you’ve talked about. And I guess, and we can probably come to this later, is just that that epidemic of loneliness as well that’s going to go on in association with this experience.
Now, many people probably assume things about mental health and wellbeing challenges for young people, what’s the million-dollar question you get from parents or loved ones when their child is experiencing these challenges?
Lucy Snowball 04:35
I think what parents want to know is, will my child be okay? Is what’s happening to them now, something that will impact them just now, or will it continue to impact them? And what can I do to help.
We often hear, so you were talking in the intro that my team leads the program evaluation at Raise and that includes surveying all the parents of our young people, parents and caregivers, and we hear from parents at the end of our program, ‘I didn’t know where to get help. I didn’t know how to access help for my young person. I felt I was alone. I felt that all of the things I would think to help, I couldn’t get them, like I couldn’t access them.’
We know how much, how challenging it can be for parents and families to access support because of the shortage of mental health professionals and obviously, how impactful that can be as well, based on where you live and based on your financial resources as well.
So parents and families really want to know that they have support that they can access, that there is a trajectory that the young person can go on, that they can support them on, and that with early intervention and even better prevention, that these young people can be put on a positive trajectory and can avoid some of the longer term challenges.
Megan Gilmour 06:11
It makes me feel hopeful just hearing that, and you mentioned there some intersectional issues, which I’m sure we’ll come to in greater detail that are going on across this challenge.
What’s the most important thing that you want them to know Lucy, when families come to you?
Lucy Snowball 06:36
I think in the same way that we would say in our mentoring program to any young person, you may feel that you’re the only one dealing with this, but actually there are so many others. They’re just not talking about it.
And we would say the same to parents and families, you’re not alone. There are lots of other families that are dealing with this challenge, and that support exists, and that support may exist in formal support, through professional support, but it might also exist through organisations, organisations like Raise.
And there are lots of wonderful organisations in our sector as well that can provide the right support for young people, but also informal support through your community and your wider family, your wider social network.
So, leaning on that help, whether it be formal professional support or even just someone to listen to you, is as important as being able to help your child and your young person as well.
You know, we overuse the expression that we need to put our own seat belts on before we put the seat belt on of our young people. But I think we would say the same for our families, that self-care for carers is as important as it is for the one that they are caring for.
Megan Gilmour 07:59
Yes, so, so important, and that message that you’re not alone is so vital in these moments of you know, what can often be great distress and feeling hopeless, and or feeling shame or blame towards oneself, about how this came about, which I predicted, something that a lot of families would feel and question themselves about.
We’d love to know, if you’re willing to share Lucy, what brought you into the world of youth, mental health and wellbeing.
Lucy Snowball 08:39
Thank you. Megan, before I joined Raise, I worked in education, and I also worked in crime and justice sectors, in evaluation and research. And through that experience, I really believe very strongly in the transformative power of education to address challenges around equity, to be a silver bullet for any young person, to build social connection and cohesion, to build a sense of community, to wrap around young people when they need it.
And we know that education is not just in the learning, but it’s also in the relationships, and it’s about spending time with other people you know your age and having those connections.
And I’ve also worked in crime and justice, which obviously can talk to the catastrophic risks or the catastrophic impact we can have when we don’t get to young people early enough, we don’t intervene early enough, we don’t support families and communities to wrap around their young people and support them.
So I think from these experiences, I believe very strongly in the importance of prevention and early intervention work and then having work that really is informed by good evidence, by good evaluation, but also is meeting people, whether they be young people, whether they be their families or communities where they are, at the right time that they need it.
Megan Gilmour 10:29
I love that. Thanks for sharing your personal passion I heard come through there about firstly, how life changing education is, and how fundamental it is to all of other things that happen in life.
And also that aligning your passion for evidence and data and taking a scientific or more evidence based approach to intervention, and making that early intervention really, really count to, as you say, intervene early enough, or at a point in time where we can direct a young person’s experience in a more positive way towards what will benefit them, or at least if not direct, give them experiences that can show them how their life could be different, which is also so vital and so much potential sitting in young people,
Lucy Snowball 11:38
Absolutely,
Megan Gilmour 11:40
Yes. Obviously we share this passion.
Lucy Snowball 11:44
Yes, definitely.
Megan Gilmour 11:45
So, knowing all that you know, and that seems to be quite a lot, and I can see that you’ve got a lot of data under your belt and evidence, and you know that you bring to this. So, knowing all that you know, what’s your biggest hope for, for kids, young people with mental health issues and wellbeing challenges, of course, for their families and loved ones as well, when navigating these challenges?
Lucy Snowball 12:14
We would sort of start by talking about, and you mentioned before about loneliness, and I think young people are the fastest growing now group of in our community who face loneliness, and young people who are navigating into perhaps challenges and poor wellbeing, loneliness is amplified for them. And I think the most important thing for anyone is to feel you’ve got people on your side, that you’re not isolated.
But also, that you’re empowered to be able to access the right support for you and have a voice in that support too, that people are working with you rather than for you, and that your voice is being heard in that process.
And when we’re thinking about families and the young people navigating what can be really stressful and difficult and complex situations, we think about the systems that are at play here. Young person and their family are navigating the education system, healthcare system, sometimes other systems as well. Sometimes they’re also navigating family expectations and the broader expectations of their community.
So, we’re really wanting those systems to work together to ensure that nobody is falling through the cracks, and that’s both in terms of young people themselves, but also broader families, because we know the impact of mental health challenges for a young person is felt at the family level as well.
And most importantly, I think, as a community, in terms of how we’re resourcing and making our policy decisions, that we move from being reactive to being proactive about the support that we give, that we prioritise and resource and fund and help families and the young people to access early intervention or prevention support, rather than waiting to get to crisis, which is obviously more challenging to get to recovery from that point, but also as a community, more resource intensive.
Megan Gilmour 14:41
Yes, so, so important. And some of the things that come to mind for me lately in the work that we’ve been doing is that young people are really the canaries in the coal mine of a poly crisis that we’re in globally.
Lucy Snowball 14:54
Yes
Megan Gilmour 14:55
And validating their experience of mental health and wellbeing challenges as not something that is wrong with them, but is something that is probably a natural reaction to a very complex world, rather than just trying to gloss over it and say, our school’s fine, you’ll be just – as long as we can get you there, it’ll all be okay without addressing the bigger, systemic issues I think.
I think young people have a great capacity to know what’s going on but are often not validated in that experience. So, I love what you’re saying there and some of the early interventions that I’d love to see more of is some policy change in some of these areas to actually respect and hear and have a full appreciation of why young people are feeling like they are.
Because it’s not one or two, it’s a lot, as you say, there’s young people having a mental health crisis, perhaps, but there are others who are feeling that their wellbeing is really stretched as well. This is a whole continuum there.
So, you’ve mentioned one in three. So, this question, how many Australian children and youth are living with mental health and wellbeing challenges right now? Is that one in three a solid answer? Do we have enough data? We’d love to hear your perspective on this.
Lucy Snowball 16:39
Yes, absolutely. I think, I mean, I think one of the interesting things, particularly coming from education, is we are very good at measuring the academic indicators that we think matter for a young person.
There’s a lot of testing that happens in schools around academic confidence and performance, but as a community, as a society, we’re not very good yet at having access to consistent quality data about mental health challenges for any age group, actually, but particularly for young people.
If you Google mental health stats, you often find collections that are 10 years old as the most recent, or they’re collected in such a way that they’re really focusing on that crisis, and so they’re talking about hospitalisations or suicide attempts.
Whereas, where we want to get better coverage is really looking at a population level and being able to talk to what is happening for that population, so that we can then use that to plan and to resource what we need to be doing to support that population.
So, I think one in three is a conservative estimate. It’s for young people, 15 and above. It’s very, very difficult to get good data on young people below the age of – definitely below the age of 16 and 15.
At Raise we work with young people who are 13 to 15, so we’re in a unique position to actually have good data on the age group that and obviously the cohort that we support. But more widely, obviously, that’s very patchy and very challenging.
And there is also obviously the challenge around how to define a mental health challenge, how to define a wellbeing challenge, what level of severity do we need to put in place? So, I chose that figure to quote, because I know it’s a conservative estimate, and I think we obviously want to be making sure that we’re being conservative where possible, if we’re not confident.
But in reality, it’s probably much more likely, because we also know about young people that they’re the least likely group to seek professional help, and they’re also a group that I think more than three in 10 young people, again, in that 15 up age group, feel like they can’t go to family and friends for help.
So, they are really suffering with challenges that they have, often in silence, and that then means that for many they are not diagnosed, or they’re not able to self-identify and be counted in these kinds of collections.
Megan Gilmour 19:56
Yes, such an important point, and that’s leading into our next question, but before we go there, just to also say, you mentioned earlier that, even if a young well, you said that if a young person even identifies that they’re struggling in that way, they might not have the agency or be willing to declare that to those around them, but then there’s also young people who can’t self-identify in that way, as well.
So, I would absolutely agree that that would be a conservative figure today. And you mentioned there, and this is the next question about delayed diagnosis, so is there a risk of delayed diagnosis, or are most, most of these cases picked up easily?
Lucy Snowball 20:46
Yes, absolutely. And I think coming back to that idea about seeking help and having the confidence to seek help but having also the space then for that help to be able to be anchored into a wider referral system.
So, we’re obviously a mentoring organisation now, our program is set up around supporting young people to build skills in help seeking, and to be able to access the support that they need through the support from their mentor, and that our program is only as effective as the referral system that sits around it.
And so not only do young people need to be able to ask for help, there also needs to be the services that can work with them and their families to make a diagnosis if that’s appropriate, or to identify support plans if that’s appropriate, or to be able to provide other support and services required.
We know right now in Australia that there’s a very big challenge accessing mental health support for any age group, for adults and for young people. We know that that’s because of a shortage of mental health professionals.
But we also know that it comes with a cost, and we know that for some families, particularly in our current cost of living crisis, for some families, that cost is out of reach, so they rely on support that schools can provide. We know also that schools are under pressure and also have their own challenges with accessing the right staff and the right mental health professionals.
So, all of these things combined really to create a very challenging environment for young people to be to be adequately supported, but then also to be diagnosed, if that’s appropriate. And there is some data about the age that a young person may start to experience mental health challenges, and that they may then go on and be diagnosed, and that gap is very large.
Again, the data is catchy and challenging, but we know that it’s not something that happens as quickly as it should or happens as quickly as perhaps some other health challenges that may happen around a young person, where the support and services are better resourced.
Megan Gilmour 23:26
Yes, so it can be a really challenging cycle. And when you add the family into that, and we’re going to get on to siblings and peers in a moment, all of that, an increase in young people’s wellbeing, lack thereof, issues, that’s a really poor way to say that, but I think everyone understands what I’m getting at.
Just the shortages, then the increase, and then the family escalation into that, and the flow on effects to adults; if it’s young people, and then if adults are unwell, then young people will be experiencing mental health or wellbeing challenges, and then that compounds, you know, so it’s going all sorts of ways in a family.
And then potentially, we’ve talked about parents or carers and young people, but what about siblings and peers when kids with mental health challenges or wellbeing challenges occur, what’s the impact there and what should we be across?
Lucy Snowball 24:46
Absolutely. So, siblings, living in families where one of their own siblings may be experiencing a mental health challenge obviously, you know, may feel that there’s not the time for them. They may feel confused and perplexed as to what they can do.
They may take on a caregiving role, and that’s not uncommon. They may also be reluctant to talk to their parents about things that are happening for them because they know that their parents are already facing these other challenges from supporting their sibling.
We know as well that many young people take on caregiving roles, whether it be for their siblings or for their families. And actually, at Raise, we have almost one in two of our mentees, so the young people in our program, who care for someone in their family or one of their friends because of mental health, disability or other health. So that’s a huge number for our program.
We know in the broader population again, the number is challenging to kind of pinpoint, but it is sort of around that maybe one in 10 young people taking on these caregiving roles. And mental health is one of those reasons that they take on caregiving roles.
And for siblings of young people who are experiencing mental health challenges, they really need that space to be able to prioritise themselves and to be able to get that space that they can be heard and supported themselves.
So, creating that space, and that can be hard in a family, but reaching out for support, thinking about how that support can be provided, an organisation like Raise is able to support many of those young people, because they do create that space just for them.
Megan Gilmour 26:55
Yes, caring for the caregivers, or giving support to the caregivers.
Lucy Snowball 26:59
Exactly, yes
Megan Gilmour 27:00
Yes, and you mentioned it earlier, but I especially think about it here with peers, but more especially with siblings, that the loss of the relationship with the person, or the deterioration of that relationship can also be a source of great grief and distress.
Lucy Snowball 27:23
Absolutely
Megan Gilmour 27:24
So now, what’s the current population of school age children with mental health and wellbeing challenges, and how accurate is this data, if it’s tracked at all?
Lucy Snowball 27:36
Yes, so I think I preempted this question a little earlier, when I was talking about the fact that we don’t have school population collections on mental health data and in the same way that we do around other areas of schooling, in terms of, obviously, academic performance, around attendance, and other forms of data that we collect routinely. We don’t do that in mental health, and we don’t have other good population level collections on young people that are consistent.
And I think we see that really at Raise as an opportunity that we can play a part in too, because we obviously have our own collection. But really thinking about that jigsaw collection that we have across many different settings that young people are in who are school aged, in terms of different programs they’re obviously interacting with, in terms of the school system, in terms of other systems that they’re in as well, because quality data is so essential to be able to understand the challenge, but also to evaluate solutions and understand what those solutions look like.
So, unfortunately, I think the short answer is, we don’t know, but the long answer is that we know that it’s high, and anecdotally, we hear that it’s getting higher as well. And we know that, obviously, for many young people, being able to identify, as we were talking about before, and be counted is also a challenge, because they may not have been diagnosed themselves, or because they may have stigma or shame attached around that.
Megan Gilmour 29:30
Yes, we really grapple with this data issue in school populations, and we see how much it impacts on the visibility of these issues as well. If there’s no data, it’s really hard for policymakers to see the problem at the population level, as you say.
And then there’s what we talk about as well is, for school age population, you then have all of these intersectionalities that are going on at the same time. So, we’ve got a Venn diagram, actually, more than – if there’s some way that we could simplify what is very complex.
Because I find it really problematic that we talk about silos, and we do it here at MissingSchool too, like we predominantly talked about children with medical conditions and the mental health conditions associated with that.
But of course, the families the children that we support have so much more than that going on as well. As you said, they might live in rural areas, there might be socio economic issues and pressures there, there may be disability in the family, in addition to a medical condition and comorbidities, in a single person dealing with all of these things.
And it just kind of hurts me when I see that there’s just this category, and this category, and this category, and we’ll focus on that, but really, it’s a grid, and listen until we can really get that granularity, our policy responses are just not going to fit. They won’t fit
Lucy Snowball 31:29
Exactly yes
Megan Gilmour 31:30
We’re seeing at the moment, and post COVID, that the reference to school refusal and the tight policy lens on that, and we’re arguing it in media. we’re arguing it with policy makers, that it’s an outcome of attendance coding and what is considered an approved absence versus one that’s not – it’s easier to diagnose cancer or heart condition, much harder to diagnose anxiety or other invisible illnesses, or harder to diagnose – and we’ve talked about the length of diagnosis.
So, just focusing on one thing, which also betrays our trust in children to understand their own experience, where we’re labeling. We’re labeling it according to an outdated sort of attendance coding, yes, system.
Lucy Snowball 32:37
Yes, absolutely
Megan Gilmour 32:38
So, these are, these are all the things that we’re dealing with.
Let’s skip to the next question. So, do kids with mental health and wellbeing challenges currently miss a lot of school, in your opinion? And why would that be?
Lucy Snowball 32:57
Yes, I think again, we’re sort of having to rely – you had such good points there about the way that we measure attendance, and obviously historically, we’ve been not even as good as we are now, we’ve sort of improved over time.
And we know that for young people who are facing mental health challenges, that school can seem like not a very safe place to be, and that they don’t feel connected with their peers, and that’s a big reason for going to school, for any young person is ‘I feel like I belong there. I feel connected to my peers, like people understand me. I feel like my teachers treat me with respect and keep me safe.’
And for young people with mental health challenges or wellbeing, we know that that can impact all of those relationships that they have.
We know, as well, as you were talking to there around school refusal, and there can be very different levels of school refusal too. Obviously, school refusal can look like young people missing huge portions, consecutive, you know, weeks and months of school.
But for many young people, school refusal can look like missing a couple of days a week, or a couple of days a fortnight when things just feel a bit too hard, or when there’s a particular day that they think it’s going to be too difficult to go to school, and we know over time that adds up.
And we know that over time then that does impact their confidence to return to school and be back at school with their peers, and we know obviously, that it also impacts their academic confidence, which in turn, is a vicious cycle in terms of impacting attendance and their long-term trajectory as well.
We find at Raise that we have young people who join our program and then start coming regularly on mentoring days. So that’s one of the first outcomes that we see that young people whose attendance might be patchy and inconsistent, that they always come on a Thursday, because mentoring is on Thursday, and then they actually start to see that there are other parts of school they enjoy. ‘Oh, I’m part of a group, and this, this group is a group that I might be able to spend a bit of time with on a Wednesday as well.’
And so suddenly, then their attendance picks up over time, and it really is about creating that safe environment and creating a sense of connection with other people at school. They’re the two ingredients that are so important to any young person and important to young people who are facing mental health challenges as well.
Megan Gilmour 36:00
Yes, absolutely meaning and connection equals belonging, really, doesn’t it?
Lucy Snowball 36:05
Absolutely
Megan Gilmour 36:06
Those two things together. And I think there’s a study coming out of UTS at the moment with Paul Ramsey Foundation funding that’s used mathematical modeling that wasn’t able to be done before, that actually shows that controlling for all other factors, belonging is the most significant factor of children’s success, or, how they perceive school or their attendance.
Go figure! I mean – we speculate on these things, but it is really good to have the clear black and white evidence that even from a low socio economic situation, if you feel like you belong, you’re going to do a lot better at school than if you had a high socio economic background and you don’t belong. This is just really coming through clearly.
And some of the peer reviewed research we look at says that I think children with medical or mental conditions are 30 to 60% more likely to fall below national benchmarks across all subject areas based on NAPLAN and large studies.
And that could also be because they’re missing school, as you pointed out, might not be a large block of time, but it could be recurrent, and we know that missing one day every two weeks puts you right on the threshold of chronic school absence as defined, which also shows just how important every day at school is.
So, what are the critical times then in the life of a kid facing mental health and wellbeing challenges you’ve shared with us that you’re focusing on a particular cohort, and maybe we could explore why that is.
Lucy Snowball 38:05
Absolutely, so. I think you think about any critical time in anyone’s life is, you know, into adulthood as well, it’s really that point of transition, isn’t it? It’s that point of change when we’re thinking about the transition into formal schooling.
So, when you know a young person or child is five or six coming into kindergarten, and then seven years later or so they have another transition, which is coming into high school. And that happens at the same time as really they’re growing into now being a teenager into adolescence, and they’re beginning to move away from their family, in the sense that they are looking to their peers more and more for influence, for relationships, for connection.
Their families are still very important to them, but other adults in their lives are important to them and having a good peer group and having that connection with their peers is becoming more and more important.
So, we know that by the age of 14, for many that’s a critical time period for mental health conditions as well, coming into being. And we know that more generally, there’s just a lot going on for young people in early high school.
And so really thinking about how we can be creating that environment, that sense of belonging that we were talking about earlier, but also that sense of connection that young people need, so that they can build their sense of self and their sense of self-worth, and they can build the kind of adult that they’re growing into because they’re really not too long off becoming adults themselves.
But also, that they’re doing it in such a way that’s safe for them, because they are moving away from their family as the only key kind of point of support and their key sort of network.
We know as well in that period, having an independent, safe adult in their corner who’s not their mum or their dad or one of their caregivers, and who’s not in their immediate family, is incredibly beneficial and a protective factor for the young people as well, because we know that they can then act as a role model.
The key, obviously, is that they’re safe and that they are there to be a support for the young person as they’re going through, and that they’re not judgmental, we would say, as well, that they’re really empowering a young person to be the best that they can be, rather than being a source of judgment or direction.
Megan Gilmour 41:18
Very important. And so, I’m hearing how your mentors play this role, and I’m also thinking at the same time about the role that one or more really good teachers can play.
Lucy Snowball 41:32
Absolutely, yes,
Megan Gilmour 41:33
And that’s another thing, if you’re not at school, that you’re missing out on. I love that you’ve mentioned that that person as being a protective factor, and I know when you’re saying that you’re actually talking about it scientifically, that’s proven to be a protective factor in a young person’s life. So, we’re not just talking about a mandatory reporter, which is also essential, but I really appreciate that and will take that away.
Because we’ve been talking a lot about where young people go and end up when school becomes unsafe for them or they can’t physically attend, and then they’re leaving the formal school system for other means, and we’re talking about just how unsafe that can be, as well as an equity issue and affordability issue, but a quality of education issue.
Ultimately, we want our young people being in regulated school systems so they can have these other things that are so important too, and protective factors. So, I really appreciated hearing that.
And I also wanted to just mention too that as we’re talking that the Disability Standards for Education is the federal regulation. I always do this plug at this point in conversations for listeners.
So mental health issues and the definitions in the Disability Standards around this are very broad and clear, so they don’t just, you know, it can even be imputed, so a suspected mental health issue, or one that happened in the past and is having ongoing effects, or all of the Disability Standards for education apply to every school education provider in Australia, which makes them very powerful.
They provide for assistive technologies and devices they additional support services. They enable learning alongside peers and access to classrooms and access to the curriculum.
So, it’s all about providing an education opportunity on equal terms to others who aren’t experiencing these things, and I just encourage anyone who’s listening to make that connection. Sometimes people struggle with the label of disability and say that’s not applicable, but we need to put that label aside and look at what this regulation does.
Because it is absolutely dealing with all sorts of facets of disability as they are defined, and a really useful tool for families to know about as well to get those additional supports that might be needed at school,
And so, kids don’t get sort of gatekeeping and segregation out of school due to their mental health issue or wellbeing challenge, is really what the disability standards also speaks to. So, I’ll leave that one there.
And we’re just going into our final sort of area now, which is just a little bit more about school life challenges, if you will.
If there’s anything else you’d like to add about what the biggest challenges or vulnerabilities facing kids with mental health and wellbeing challenges might be, and what’s happening today to address them, whether you think that’s enough, I know Raise is doing an amazing job, but if you’re willing to talk more broadly, we’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
Lucy Snowball 45:15
Yes. I mean, I think we’ve talked, obviously, quite a bit about the feelings that can come alongside mental health challenges around feeling alone, obviously, and misunderstood, and obviously that can lead to disengagement and lack of connection with others.
I think also that stigma is something that we have done a lot of work as a society and a community to address. And actually, one of the organisations we work very closely with, do a lot of amazing work in schools around the stigma of mental health and destigmatising and really addressing some of those outdated concepts about what mental health can mean in terms of who’s impacted by mental health challenges, and people exaggerating symptoms, or it being a sign of weakness, and I think there’s been a lot of great work done around that.
But I think there’s still a lot of important work to do around stigma in the school environment and in our wider community, and also in families as well. And that obviously comes from education, and it comes from people sharing their stories, which is very powerful. It comes from centering, I think, people with lived experience and their voices, and thinking about designing not just solutions, but also designing systems like our education system with the voices of the very people that it’s designed to support, young people.
And we obviously know how important young people’s voices are in the design of our program. And I think education also, and the education environment, not just in terms of learning, but the environment that education takes place, could really be strengthened by bringing in young people’s voices, whether they be young people facing mental health challenges or, more generally, as a way of really improving the environment that education takes place.
And I think really, for young people, tailored support is so important. Really thinking about, you talked a lot before about comorbidities, and that idea of there’s not one thing to solve. Actually, a young person is a product of their environment. But also, for many young people, there are lots of different things going on for any of us as well. And thinking about that tailored support is so important too and getting the right support for people at the right time.
Megan Gilmour 48:10
Yes, hear, hear to that. We’re doing a lot of work on changes to the school model to make it much more 21st century fit, and we’re talking about structural change in making schools hybrid delivery models, because some young people cannot physically get to school.
Lucy Snowball 48:29
Absolutely
Megan Gilmour 48:30
They can’t – it doesn’t matter what you solve and how you change attendance codes. The fact is, you could solve for all those things, and there will still be a very large number of young people who cannot physically get to a school classroom.
Lucy Snowball 48:48
Absolutely
Megan Gilmour 48:49
We say that the only way you can solve that at scale is with technology. And then people say, ‘Oh, no, we don’t want children to be online.’ And then I say, ‘Well, what do you think’s happening to them now when they’re not at school?’
Lucy Snowball 49:01
Exactly
Megan Gilmour 49:03
And it’s really a moment that is really jarring to watch somebody realise that they’re rejecting a change to a school model to only send young people out to the wilderness and families to struggle with what to do.
So, I’m getting clearer and better at being able to really challenge the resistance to this, because we’ve proved it as an organisation to be effective. It’s not the only thing. It’s not solely the solution, but when you can maintain connection, the likelihood of physical return to school goes up, if that’s possible.
Yes, so we’re really all about that. And the other thing I reflected on while you were talking there was that our teachers are also struggling with mental health issues as well, and a lot of, 75% of teachers are women who are primary caregivers in their family, and they’ll have young people just based on the stats,
Lucy Snowball 50:07
Yes, absolutely
Megan Gilmour 50:08
It’s not just a stat for this cohort of or this segment of society, it’s a population wide stat.
And so, you’ve got a situation where predominantly women are trying to solve this problem in schools with their students, or not solve it, but manage it, or engage with the issue and then experiencing it for their own children as well.
So, I think unless and until we really start to look at the interrelationships between this and the multiple root causes, we probably, you know, we’re coming at it from much higher up in the problem tree, than we need to be, and maybe try to slap on some band aids, but I think we’re going to be looking over the next five years to need much more integrated policy solutions.
So, that was just something I was thinking about as you were talking about it as I could hear in your answer, that there’s a similar feeling about the need for change at school.
Lucy Snowball 51:24
Definitely, yes
Megan Gilmour 51:28
And as we said, to just bookend that, how important we regard education to be, and how much we know it makes a difference in a young person’s life to break cycles, to provide a good life, and everything else that comes with that. It’s just unequivocally, it’s just vital. So, I look forward to doing more work in that area, as I’m sure you do too.
Have we missed anything as we come to the end of our conversation, which has been such a rich conversation? Is there anything else that you’d like to add in about school quality of life or mental health and wellbeing challenges for young people?
Lucy Snowball 52:13
I think we’ve talked quite a bit already about the differential impact across our community. So, for a young person who’s living in a major city, in a financially advantaged household with parents who don’t have English as their first language, or who are not very confident with English, already that’s really challenging for them to access support for the young person if they are facing mental health challenges.
But add in any additional characteristic around financial challenge or distress, or culturally diverse backgrounds, which you know make perhaps English more challenging, or just an understanding of the landscape, understanding how to navigate systems, young people who are from First Nations, backgrounds, young people who might be living in remote areas or regional areas, or areas without the services that our major cities have, that’s even more challenging.
And equity is such an important outcome in every space that we are in. Yet we know in education, equity of access doesn’t exist in Australia. And we know that equity of outcomes for education don’t exist in Australia, and we know that equity of outcomes around mental health as well doesn’t exist right now in Australia.
So really thinking about not having a one size fits all approach and really thinking about how we bring that equity lens into everything that we do.
And the second thing I would add as well, coming off that theme about the one size fits all is we know how important programs that are designed for a particular cohort and well-designed based on good evidence and delivered well for that cohort, we know how impactful programs like that can be.
But we also know that if programs are not well designed, if programs are designed for a particular cohort, but delivered to a whole group of young people, if they’re not trauma informed, if they’re not culturally safe, that they can actually be harmful.
And I think in our space, it’s really exciting to see more and more work that’s being done around the unexpected and unintentional harm of well-intended, well thought out programs that are delivered in the wrong way, or delivered for the wrong people, and how actually they can not only be harmful for their participants, they can also divert resources that could be better used elsewhere.
So think coming back to that kind of question about really designing for young people in a way that listens to them, that centres their voices, but also is done based on sound and strong research and is safe, and that we’re not rolling out something for everyone, or rolling out something in such a way that leads to harm when we never expect it, never want it, but it does happen.
And obviously that’s something that we run the risk of in any setting, but for young people, it’s so important, because getting that right help at the right time can be life changing, and we don’t ever want a school setting or another setting to be a space where programs are delivered in a way that’s not safe and lead to harm when we have been entrusted by families and parents to look after and support a young person.
Megan Gilmour 56:26
Yes, hear, hear to that. This is one that’s really deep in our minds and hearts as well. We talk a lot about the unintended consequences and unintended impact as well. There’re both sides of that. But the thing – with an ineffectively implemented program, and I think both of those things, one’s about the program itself and the quality of that, and the other ones about implementation science.
And so, you can have a great program that’s poorly implemented and get poor outcomes, or whatever, and vice versa. But it’s also harmful, if people have a starry-eyed idea that it’s been effective, and even if it hasn’t been harmful, but it hasn’t been effective, and the outcome is neutral, we consider that to be harmful because, as you said, it’s diverted resources, and if that continues, it’s harmful ultimately, because it’s not delivering what everyone expected, and that’s being masked.
And so, there’s an opportunity cost to getting the right support as well for the young person. I think I have some real concerns at the moment about the multi-tiered support systems that are being talked about as the answer to school non-attendance. And I don’t know if you’ve heard about these or this approach. To me, it just looks like good ideas, but everybody’s talking about MTSS, MTSS.
And my answer is always the same, where is the implementation science for an MTSS, actually, and how would you compare those between schools at their three tiers? And it’s how those are going to be implemented, whatever they are.
And this doesn’t seem to be in the conversation. I feel like that’s one of those things that could end up being quite – it sounds great, but it’s not actually delivering on whatever anybody expects, and people don’t actually know what it is. It’s not being delivered scientifically.
So, I really want to place that there, because it’s getting a very big, a lot of airtime and a big run, I think, that schools should be practicing multi-tiered system of support. So that’s one that you might like to take a look at too and see how you feel about it.
But as we close, what’s your call to action in seven words or less in this space?
Lucy Snowball 59:31
Well, not surprisingly, I’m from a mentoring organisation, and I’m a mentor myself for young people. So, my seven words is, every young person deserves a trusted mentor.
Megan Gilmour 59:43
Yes, amazing. That is so, so true for all the reasons we talked about. And, you know, having someone just believe in you and show up for you actually makes the world of difference. So, I just really, really want to thank you for being on the call today, Lucy, and for sharing your incredible insights, which are data led, and just being such a great advocate in the work that you’re doing. And we really appreciate everything you’ve shared today for the audience. I know it would be incredibly helpful.
And of course, we want to shout out to Raise Foundation, and you can find them over at www.raise.org.au [https://www.raise.org.au], go there, give, donate, support, become a mentor, perhaps, whatever, volunteer, whatever that is, because we need more organisations like this, doing this kind of work.
Thank you so much for joining us today. Lucy on Live & Learn, and we really value your work and the work of the Raise Foundation.
Lucy Snowball 1:00:50
Thank you so much. Megan, I’ve really enjoyed our conversation today. It’s been really interesting and useful, and I think there’s so many things that we can be doing, we just need to start doing them, don’t we?
Megan Gilmour 1:01:04
Yes indeed.
Thanks everyone for tuning in. Help us turn up the volume so all kids are seen and heard. Follow along, like, share, comment, or leave us a review, because we love hearing from you. And if you want to donate head to MissingSchool.org.au [https://www.missingschool.org.au], because every dollar makes a difference.
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