Mental health impacts many people and can also result in the deterioration of physical health.
It is important to seek support very early on and find help from various services available, including free counselling for youth.
Young people are impacted with mental health and can often neglect accessing support or struggle to find the help they need early on, it can start with a conversation with a friend or counsellor.
SBS Assyrian has a discussion with a panel, including a young Assyrian woman, which we call Mary* (*the name is an Alias for privacy reasons). Mary shares her experience as a young refugee in Australia and how she has sought support in the past. Mary also tells us about the importance of accessing health services when faced with bad experiences in life.
We discover some reasons why young people might find it hard to ask for help or avoid getting help.
Lina Ishu, Youth Program Team Leader, from STARTTS NSW gives us her insight into the barriers young people might face when they are experiencing mental health issue and what options are available for young people to have a conversation, and look out for themselves over the school holiday break.
Lina also shares her knowledge about the ways young people speak about their mental health with someone they can trust.
Our panel of guest speakers discuss why it is important to get help early and reduce the shame about mental health for young people in the Assyrian community.
Listen to the full panel discussion, aired on SBS Assyrian on 28 December 2021.
Thank you Mary for sharing your experiences and Lina for giving us your insight as a youth worker with STARTTS.
For support contact:
- Lifeline - 13 11 14
- Beyond Blue - 1300 22 4636
- Headspace - https://headspace.org.au/
- NSW STARTTS - https://www.startts.org.au/
- Foundation House (Victoria) - https://foundationhouse.org.au/for-clients/client-services/
