Earlier in the month students from Gundagai Public School as part of the Mind and Muscle program had a visit from the local ambulance crew, where the focus was to help lower fear and anxiety surrounding emergency services.
Every week for the past 2 years, Mitch and Ash Waddell from Defiance Co go into schools in Gundagai and run a mentoring program for some students, teaching lessons around positive psychology, emotional awareness, resilience and mental and physical health.
Mitch Waddell said the program began because they identified that they wanted to touch base with kids in the early stage and then also in high school to try and open their mindset to emotional resilience, mental health and the link between physical health and mental well-being.
“We are just trying to get the kids engaged in different patterns of thought, different coping mechanisms and addressing communication issues such as bullying or failure, those sort issues that arise within youth,” Mitch said.
“That was our main focus, we both have backgrounds in dealing with trauma and we saw that there wasn’t really a link from the school system in to the social pressures, so we’re just wanting to instil confidence within the kids to be able to discuss the issues, what they are facing and experiencing
around emotional support or mental health support,” Mitch said.
“We are basically just focusing on positive psychology, so reframing traditional thoughts in a positive way and emotional awareness, showing the participants these are normal feelings, we all feel the same things, it’s how we deal and come back from them that is important,” Mitch said.
When the program first came into the school, they started with just boys in years 4, 5 and 6 at Gundagai Public School, but it has fluctuated over time.
“We had the year 9, 10 and 11 boys at Gundagai High School for a while. Right now, we are running boys and girls in years 5 and 6 at Gundagai Public School,” Mitch said.
Earlier in the month the students involved in the program at Gundagai Public School had a visit from the local ambulance service.
“We wanted to try and get the emergency services involved because there is a bit of a stigma and fear around emergency services. We are all guilty of it, creating fear or anxiety around them,” Mitch said.
The main points of the visit were to help lower fear and anxiety around medical emergencies, to better understand what to expect when emergency services arrive, to learn how to assist first responders, and to develop strategies to stay calm in stressful situations.
“There were three prongs to this visit. One was possible employment opportunities. If kids had never been exposed to it, it may have sparked an interest. The second prong was if they had to call 000 and the ambulance had to come to their house, teaching them how they could help. Rather than sitting back and feeling helpless, how they can actually be helpful.”
“But the main point behind the visit was to remove the fear and anxiety around having to call the emergency services, so knowing when and how to call them and also knowing that if these people rocked up, it may be one of the people they met that day. Just helping to build that rapport with the emergency services and so they aren’t scared, they know that person – so just lowering that fear, stress and anxiety around an emergency and something that is abnormal that they haven’t experienced before,” Mitch said.
Mitch said they believe that the program is so important because they recognise the need for a proactive approach to incidents and try to address them from an early age.
“We would ideally love to have years 4, 5, 6 and then follow the students all the way through high school too, so that we can continue the message of emotional resilience and mental health,” Mitch said.
-Emily Flint
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