By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
BRUCE Austin stood atop the lookout, gazed over the City of Casey, and prayed.
Only a few months earlier, in 2010, the father of four had suffered a catatonic episode brought on by severe stress and depression.
The then 50-year-old stood on the lookout in Berwick’s Wilson Botanic Park and knew his life would continue to slip away unless he changed something.
“I crashed in December 2010, I was spent,” he said.
“I was crumbling 10 years earlier than that but battled on for 10 years, and then crashed. The crash ended up with me being carried off in an ambulance and in a psych ward.
“Then I had to put in a plan to recover. And I’m still in recovery, because it takes you decades to get to that place and it’s not a quick fix to get out.”
Desperate to get back on his feet, Bruce – now the program co-ordinator for the ground breaking new youth mental health program ‘Y4U2’ – was encouraged to engage in daily exercise as a means of mitigating his depression, and found himself volunteering at Casey Arc in Narre Warren.
With the help of the gym, Bruce’s insight into the world of mental health saw him this year launch the Y4U2 Program for at-risk youth at Berwick College.
Y4U2 ran as an eight-week program for 17 Year 10 to 12 students who felt they would benefit from extra support in the form of life coaching, exercise and activities. Each session ran for 90 minutes and includes group fitness classes delivered by Casey ARC YMCA, in addition to a weekly presentation delivered by a different mental health professional each time.
The overwhelming positive feedback to this year’s program will see it run again in 2015, this time at both Berwick College and a second school still to be decided.
“Chris (then Casey Arc manager) came to me and said there was clearly a need in the community,” Bruce said.
“We know there’s a lot of big players out there, there’s Headspace, there’s Beyondblue but we all need to start trying to nail this thing because of what’s happening with mental health. So why don’t you go and see if you can do something else?
“He basically gave me a mandate and said, go and see what you can do, if you’ve got the time, so I did some research and we identified a strong need was in the high school area – kids dealing with self-harm and suicide issues, mental health and wellbeing.”
Y4U2 launched in the second term of 2014, after Bruce spent two years researching how best to operate the program. A team of 30 volunteers helped run Y4U2, which was awarded for ‘program excellence’ by the YMCA.
“In 2016 we’re planning for me to mentor someone who can be another program co-ordinator. And from there it can just multiply,” Bruce said.
“The YMCA centres seem to be the obvious place to do it. Because out there every YMCA has access to Beyondblue, every YMCA has access to Headspace, everyone has access to their local council youth workers – it’s a reproducible model.”
Now when Bruce walks through Wilson Botanic Park, the grass is that little bit greener.
“When you give, you receive,” he said.
A number of business volunteered their services to the students involved in the Y4U2 program, including Trailmix, Anaconda, Napoleon Perdis, Isha’s Hair, Hairhouse Warehouse, Dominic’s Hairdressing, Perri’s Hairdressing, Village Cinemas, Grill’d and Westfield Marketing.
Those in need of immediate assistance, or who need to talk to someone they can trust, can phone Lifeline on 13 11 14.
