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On Wednesday I was again one of 350 National Australia Day Ambassadors. I headed off to Franklin, where I was greeted by an amazing community of people who welcomed me with open arms. But this time around the day was different for me. I have headed off the last 5 years as an Australia Day Ambassador filled with real pride and excitement. This year, I didn’t feel that. In the [...]

R U OK Day for 2021 is fast approaching (September 9). As an R U OK? Day ambassador, I get excited at the prospect of how much change and awareness one question can make, all across the country. Leading into this important day on the mental health calendar, I always like to share why I’m so passionate about representing R U OK?. And this year I wanted to reflect on [...]

Understandably, something that happens quite a lot in my life is that people, friends and strangers, reach out to me for support or advice. No matter how much I try and shake the tag, I'll probably always be known as “the guy that experienced grief”. Most of the contact is mental health related, where either that person or someone they know is in a pickle and they want some advice. [...]

One thing I am incredibly familiar with in my life, are the signs and symptoms of depression and anxiety. There is a slide within my presentation that names some of them up -  things such as feeling irritable, changes in sleep, losing interest or withdrawing from our normal activities. After reeling a few of these off to the audience, I always say, “we will all feel these across our lifetime, [...]

Tomorrow is World Suicide Prevention Day. Each year the International Association for Suicide Prevention highlights the importance of this issue on 10 September. This year’s theme is Working Together to Prevent Suicide. Suicide prevention is not just an issue for Tasmania or Australia but something that requires international attention. It’s a big issue. Suicide is responsible for more than 800,000 deaths across the globe each year and it has a [...]

After the recent passing of self-professed “Mayor of Salamanca” and all-round nice guy Hugh Burridge, I felt a sadness deep within that I hadn’t felt for a very long time. As I navigated through these rising emotions, I was overwhelmed with the sense of unfairness that another young life was cut short. But what I soon learnt is that while grief and loss are things I fear, a life lived [...]

In Tasmania, unfortunately very few of us have to look too far to know someone who has been affected by suicide. Globally 800,000 people die by suicide each year and there are 135 people affected by every suicide - that’s 108 million people who are bereaved by suicide each year. These are the facts – it’s not intended to be sensationalist or emotive - it highlights that we need to [...]

Driving back from the states north west last Friday morning, sadly I heard the news that a man had died in a motor vehicle accident overnight.   Every life lost, no matter which way is a tragedy.  What caught my attention at the end of the story was that this death takes the states road toll to 3 for 2019. Again, that is 3 too many lives lost.  This prompted me [...]

For the first time in 5 years I went on a holiday where I didn’t have to worry about Stay ChatTY and it’s momentum slowing down. In the past whilst holidaying I’ve drove not only my wife mad, but myself mad in not being able to “switch off”. Stay ChatTY for years was me only, so I had to be the one to keep the wheels turning on emails, social [...]