When she was in Year 9, Longwood local Elizabeth Ireland began volunteering for youth-based mental health charity Live4Life in Benalla.
While she was connected to the program through her high school – Benalla’s FCJ College – Elizabeth continues to be involved with Live4Life post graduation, now part of its online program, Crew4Life, in her first year of university.
She said she had always been passionate about calling for change in the regional and rural youth mental health space.
“Through (my volunteering) and my role at school as one of the social justice and environment captains, I’ve continuously been helping to advocate for better spaces, better policy in governments and more funding for regional and rural mental health,” she said.
“It’s a completely different struggle kids in regional and rural areas go through compared to metropolitan areas in getting access and having the help and resources available to them.”
On Thursday, April 16, Elizabeth met Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, on the second day of an in-person workshop in Melbourne.
Invited to the workshop by preventative youth mental health organisation batyr, Elizabeth had the chance to draw the attention of two globally high-profile individuals to the cracks in the system, and the local stories exemplifying these cracks.
“It was incredible, just being able to talk to them,” she said.
“I had Harry standing right next to me, and I was explaining to him what we had discussed and brainstormed (in the workshop) and he was just so attentive, and wasn’t there for the media opportunity.
“He had questions for us, and he really took the time to understand. They stayed for so much longer than what they were supposed to, and you could see that they genuinely cared.”
The two-day workshop involved 16 young advocates from across regional Australia coming together to partake in a series of activities to help them share their experiences, explore solutions and test their ideas.
Chief executive of batyr Patrick Darcy said the visit brought the organisation’s work to the foreground.
“We say mental ill-health doesn’t discriminate, but for young people in regional and rural Australia it does,” he said.
“Organisations like batyr work really hard to deliver preventative mental health education into these communities, equipping young people with the tools to help themselves and each other before crisis occurs.
“Having the Duke and Duchess of Sussex attend the workshop helps bring our integral work into the spotlight and ensure young people’s voices are shaping the mental health system around them.”
Leveraging this spotlight, batyr is calling for urgent investment in prevention, so every young person can access support early before the onset of a mental health crisis — regardless of where they live.
