Woodcock Public Lecture 2024: Understand trauma; understand mental health Part 1

Speaker 1 00:00

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Speaker 2 00:19

Brainwaves. Hear the world differently. Bringing community mental health to you, raising awareness and challenging stigma. Tune in to 3CR Community Radio, Wednesdays at 5pm.

Speaker 3 00:32

[?] ... time Radio Program featuring community organisations, powerful stories and information. Find us at brainwaves.org.au ... Proudly sponsored by Wellways Australia.

Speaker 4 00:46

Welcome to Brainwaves on 855 AM, 3CR digital and streaming on 3cr.org.au ... My name is Ananya and you are listening to the Woodcock Public Lecture that was conducted on May 22nd. To celebrate NAIDOC week we have a welcome to country by Stacy Piper as delivered at the lecture. It outlines her story and how trauma has been passed down in her lineage.

Speaker 5 01:10

My name is Laura Collister, I'm the Chief Executive of Wellways. I would like to acknowledge and especially welcome Wellways board members and members of our Lived and Living Experience Authority. Other notable guests include Catherine Wetten, the Deputy Secretary of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Division, Carolyn Lambert, Co-Chair of the Victorian Collaborative Centre, Leanne Bigley, CEO of the National Centre for Prevention of Child Abuse, Child Sexual Abuse and Claire Davies, the CEO of Shark. I would also like to extend apologies on behalf of our board chair, Michael Gorton, who unfortunately has come down with COVID this afternoon and so can't be here.

Now let's turn our attention to tonight's Woodcock lecture. Understand Trauma, Understand Mental Health is the title. We have three speakers and a subsequent panel discussion. I would like to introduce Stacey Piper and invite her on stage to conduct our Welcome to Country.

Speaker 6 02:16

Thank you very very much and hello. It's a pleasure to be here to welcome you all to country. I've just been at my daughter's school doing a cultural awareness session and talked for an hour straight about trauma and the effects of trauma through the generations and particularly through my family and my community. So yeah it's fitting that I've driven down off the mountain where we live and come down here to address a room full of practitioners and people that are dedicated to maybe healing these spaces or helping bring better processes and systems into these spaces and yeah it's amazing work that you all do.

So I know from a First Nations perspective how important it is that everyone that we interact with are trauma -informed you know hence my session tonight with her school teachers because you wouldn't really think these days that school teachers need to be mental health practitioners as well would you but they are they've got our future in their hands don't they they've got our children and I really see how important trauma -informed practice is across all sectors and in all spaces and obviously me as a parent breaking cycles of trauma for the next generation.

So that was in the Wurrung language. Do any of you know who the Wurrung language speaking people are? Are there hands of people that do? A couple. So Wurrung is the language that was spoken on this soil for thousands of generations over 65 ,000 years they can date but obviously it's going to be much longer. That language has been woken up over a couple of generations and I basically introduced myself. My name is Stacey I'm a proud Wurrung Dreeja Dauranga Nooralla Wurrung woman, tongue twister and I'm also Irish.

Speaker 6 05:12

I acknowledged my ancestors, my elders - any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the room, or First Nations in the room? Everyone in the room, we're all First Nations aren't we, from somewhere - we all walk with our old people, our ancestors. So I acknowledge all of yours, I acknowledge the layers of country which is linked to our value systems as Wurrung people, those value systems that we acknowledge are improving the mental health of communities. The more that we speak them the more that we embed them into everything we do the more that we teach them to the next generation, and the more that we live them because those values are about just being human and living in harmony and connection to country and nature living with values - which are about caring for country, caring for your elders, caring for each other caring for yourself - you know those sorts of things. 

I think all of us as human beings can benefit from in our mental and physical wellbeing. We live on a beautiful part in a beautiful part of the world lucky country as they say - but not for many. But we do have, we're lucky to access clean drinking water and roofs over our head and food to eat. And obviously I acknowledge all the people around the world who are suffering right now in real time - so I'll be quick, I've got another couple of minutes. But I'm a curator here at the State Library and excuse me, I love to bring visuals - so this is just a map of Australia and this is the map of what it looked like before. So you can see that little orange spot down the bottom there above the pink, that's where we are, where I'm wandering country. 

t's just a blip, isn't it, in the overall scheme of things, and especially in this continent alone it's just a tiny little  [We'll be right back...] area of Wurrung speaking people who were once 30 ,000 and post invasion we went down to 18 people and the ongoing effects from that time which was four generations ago are still very real and very present in today's community whether it manifests through mental health issues, incarceration, suicide, child removal, deaths in custody and the list goes on chronic illness. So yeah, a lot of mess to clean up and there's a lot of great work being done and for First Nations people it's nice to know that there are safe spaces hopefully for them and people that understand and who can understand what they bring and carry with them because it's very recent.

08:16

So the next slide I always start with William Barak - so he was our nutting gator, our head man - then Annie Barate his sister so all Wurundjeri people come who are left here. We come from Annie Barate and so I always acknowledge the women whose voices were silenced and who were pretty strong to live through what they lived through for us to still be here then great great grandparents then down to my nan and my mum. And I always acknowledge my nan and my mum because they were, well my nan was a black woman in under the white Australia policy, so you can imagine the mental health she would have carried - but she was just such a positive person and always cracking jokes and I think that's how she dealt with everything.

But there was lots of love, you know love really does heal and cure and keep families going... because she lived she outlived all her siblings and she lived outside of the life expectancy. So it's amazing when you can celebrate those stories, not just the the trauma, and my mum she was born prior to the 1967 referendum - by '67 she was where there was a resounding Yes vote for Aboriginal people. She was 21 at the time and the policies that shifted from there saw us getting more access to housing, education and health care. And by then I think for mum, you know her hopes and dreams I think had already been kind of dwindled away, and she had clinical depression and she actually... 

I was born at the QVU hospital just here and my birth imprint is right there. But she'd also had a stillbirth after me - but they say that undiagnosed you know for a lot of women, I think out of this site here there was a lot of that undiagnosed trauma as well. So I acknowledge them and the, you know, in a mental health space like I said, it's not always doom and gloom... but we're in a space that... I only have a few minutes to speak so I might as well hit it sharp - so you know it's very real drilled down to my mother, so for me and my daughter we're as I said, breaking cycles of oppression and all sorts of things. And yeah I think for me personally through ceremony... 

So Fena and I and connection to country... so we go up and visit Coranderrk regularly - that was the mission that I was talking about that my nan was born on. We plant trees and we go dance under the mountain ash up in the forest and we connect to the native wildlife up there. She dances and sings in her language and culture and we do ceremony once a year. That ceremony hadn't been practiced for over 185 years, so we're 10 years in. You can already see the healing benefits of the next generation, because they're being in... it's being embedded in them from babies now. So that is a key I think ceremony and reconnection to your values. 

And I'll stop there because I could be here for another 15 minutes - but I sent these slides and I was really grateful that you could play them for me because it's just a little bit deeper for me to share and welcome you all to country so when you come we're andrew balac in mikuni big welcome to our country and thank you for listening and being present in just a little bit of my story so nongodgeon - thank you.

Speaker 5 12:07

Thank you to Stacy for the generous and thought provoking and on-topic welcome to country. That was really nice and it was lovely to hear your family's story. I also would like to acknowledge the courage and strength of the Lived Experience Movement. We recognise people in our communities with lived experience of mental health and those who support and walk alongside them. We acknowledge that everybody's journey is unique and valued. We recognise their strength and courage. We also respect and value their generous contributions which teach us and guide us to continually shape, reflect upon and deliver quality care from a lived experience perspective. Now a little bit about the Woodcock Lecture.

The Frank Woodcock Lecture is a landmark event for Wellways and the broader mental health and wellbeing system. This lecture is made possible by Frank Woodcock who wanted to honour the memory of his son, Bruce, who lived with schizophrenia and tragically died by suicide. Frank generously approached Wellways in 1999 with a vision to challenge the stigma and discrimination surrounding mental health, to generate and inspire action from organisations to serve those most in need. The annual lecture aims to lead conversations that challenge us and our sector to innovate, improve and embed practices that achieve a vision, our vision of an inclusive community where everyone can imagine and achieve their hopes and potential.

As an organisation we are deeply committed to realising the vision set out by the Victorian Royal Commission into Victoria's mental health system and take these learnings broadly across mental health services across Australia. It is with significant disappointment then, a disappointment that I know is shared by so many in the room, that we received the recent state budget and the news that many of the substantial reforms will not be funded in the coming year. To name a few of those reforms, foundational reforms such as the establishment of the Lived and Living Experience Agency, a direct recommendation of the Royal Commission, and transformational reforms such as the development and establishment of regional mental health and wellbeing boards, and further establishment of the promised mental health and wellbeing locals across Victoria.

15:08

Here at Wellways we are committed to standing up for what we believe in and we believe in the Royal Commission recommendations. We will continue our advocacy and commitment to ensuring that the vision of the Royal Commission remains a priority for the Victorian Government. And we respect the invaluable contribution and the stories told by those with lived experience to the Royal Commission that acknowledge the current failures of the mental health system. 

So on to tonight's lecture. We are gathered here with a shared goal to delve into the intricate relationships between trauma and mental health. It's not just an academic exercise but a crucial exploration into a topic that touches the lives of countless people, families and communities. The importance of understanding trauma. Trauma, in various forms, can profoundly influence our mental health and wellbeing. It shapes our perceptions, behaviours and even our physiological responses. Understanding the complex interplay between traumatic experiences and psychological wellbeing is, therefore, paramount to fostering an empathic, support-based, person-centred and kind mental health system.

This year's speakers will provide us with insights into their work and insights into what must be done to bridge the gap between theory and practice, empathy and advocacy, to ensure trauma-informed practice is at the front of mental health system reform. And as we embark on this exploration, let's commit to action. translate these insights into real change in what we do. Finally, before we commence, I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to our esteemed speakers, organisers, and all of you for coming here. I would like to thank and acknowledge Frank and Bruce Woodcock, who generously made this lecture possible.

Speaker 4 17:30

You are listening to the Woodcock Public Lecture that was conducted on May 22nd. To finish listening to this speaker's thoughts, tune into next week's episode. Thank you for listening to Brainwaves on 3CR, and see you next week.

Speaker 7 17:43

You've been listening to a 3CR podcast produced in the studios of independent community radio station 3CR in Melbourne, Australia. For more information go to allthews.3cr.org.au