Businesses encouraged to help fund mental health courses in Whangarei

Trish Madison, left and Tracey Hodgkinson opening their Skills for Life Charitable Trust in Rathbone Street, Whangarei 20 April 2017 Northern Advocate photograph by John Stone

Northland's business community is encouraged to get behind an initiative to help young people experiencing mental health issues.

Two former non-government organisation employees, psychiatric nurse Tracey Hodgkinson and manager Trish Madison, have teamed up to establish a charitable trust to provide learning programmes for anyone struggling with anxiety, depression, bipolar and low self esteem/resiliency challenges.

The Skills for Life Charitable Trust offers courses for 13-17 year olds and for those aged 18-plus.

The Trust has set up in a building in Rathbone Street and is holding an official opening today with courses starting from May 1. They also hope to run some courses in Dargaville or anywhere else if there are enough people wanting it.

The pair are covering costs themselves, although they are applying for grants, have become providers with Manaia PHO and have organised some funding streams for students. But some students may need to pay for courses themselves, they said.

A givealittle page has been set up to help younger teens into courses (search givealittle skills for life or https://givealittle.co.nz/org/skillsforlife).

"Funding, especially for 13- to 17-year-olds, is the biggest challenge," said Ms Madison, who runs her own accounting business, Accounta Future Accounting.

"We've had some support already but hope once more businesses become aware of the initiative others will follow."

Ms Madison and Ms Hodgkinson had worked together previously for a non-government organisation.

"We're pretty excited about this because from working in the sector we saw where there were gaps, especially for youth, so we hope this will go some way to helping.

"The courses are open to anyone because we want to support and guide people away from the cliff edge not compete with the stretcher bearers at the bottom."

Ms Madison was previously manager of the Whau Valley Whairoa Support Trust and service manager of the Recovery Education Hub for nearly nine years. She has a post-graduate diploma in clinical nutrition, a diploma in art and creativity and is a qualified accountant.

Although born in Whangarei, she has lived and worked in Perth, the Ruawai/Dargaville area and travelled extensively returning to Whangarei permanently in the late 1990s.

Her passion for mental health issues arose from her own experiences of varying degrees of depression as a young adult and the more than eight years spent working within the mental health sector and seeing the changes in people's lives when there is a belief in a personal recovery journey to whichever point the person chooses.

Ms Hodgkinson is a UK-trained psychiatric nurse and CBT therapist (cognitive behavioural therapy) with more than 20 years of experience in mental health issues.

She moved to New Zealand with her family 15 years ago and has lived in Whangarei for most of those years except for a recent stint in the UK.

She has worked in many areas of practice including acute mental health, elderly mental health, eating disorders, community mental health, hospice care, primary mental health care (private practice), recovery services and mental health education.

She has been using CBT to direct her practice for many years and trained fully as a CBT therapist gaining a BSc (Hons) 13 years ago.

In her last role in the UK (2012-15) Ms Hodgkinson was a lead practitioner in the development of a recovery service based on ''The recovery college model''. The courses aimed at teaching students about mental health issues, their effects, self-management and how to move forward on their recovery journey.

Ms Hodgkinson says she shared in the successes of many students when they achieved whatever they determined recovery meant for them.

"I know first-hand that learning, together as students with labels and stigma removed, about self-management and recovery enables people to make the most of the talents and resources that they have helping them achieve whatever it they want in their life or work.

"A passion for supporting others with their recovery journey, a belief that recovery is for all, a like minded friend and colleague (Trish), as well as professional / personal knowledge and experience is what has led to being part of 'Skills for Life'," Ms Hodgkinson said.

Visit www.skillsforlife.nz for more information.