MENTAL HEALTH MONTH: Lived experience breaking down barriers

Lived experience is helping break down barriers to mental health support in Port Pirie, with peer workers providing visitors with someone who can relate to what they may be going through.

As part of Mental Health Month, Tayla Hunt has highlighted the role peer support can play in helping people feel comfortable opening up and seeking help.

The Port Pirie Medicare Mental Health Centre peer support worker drew on her own lived experience of addiction in her work and said sharing parts of her recovery journey could help establish a connection with visitors.

“A lot of times, people come in and they’ll want to have a chat, and they’ll be really quite almost closed off, like they’re a bit nervous,” Ms Hunt said.

“You kind of share a little bit about what you’ve been through, it might relate to what they’re going through.

“They then really open up and they feel like they have a connection with you, which is really special.”

Ms Hunt said peer support differed from clinical care by removing a sense of hierarchy and allowing conversations to feel less formal and much like speaking with someone you trust who understands what you’re going through

“You’re building a relationship with them, you’re meeting them where they are on their level.

“They don’t feel like they’re being judged or that someone’s above them.

“It’s literally just talking to someone who understands and gets what they’re going through.”

Ms Hunt said people did not need to be experiencing a mental health crisis to visit the centre, as staff regularly support people who experience grief and loss, childhood trauma, addiction, and general stress.

Visitors are initially greeted by a peer worker on arrival at the centre and can move into a private, homelike space to discuss what has brought them in.

Ms Hunt said the service had attracted people from across different demographics since opening in February last year, with the number of older men seeking support particularly encouraging.

“I think it’s really amazing that older men have been accessing our service, like people who definitely generationally have that idea that you don’t talk about your emotions,” she said.

“But, they’ve been coming in a lot and I feel like they have gotten a lot out of our service.

“I think it’s really heartening to see that we’re having an impact on those people.”

No appointment, referral, Medicare card or payment is required to use the centre’s services.

Ms Hunt encouraged people not to dismiss what they were experiencing if they believed it was not serious enough.

“If it feels big and it’s impacting your life in a way that you feel like you could benefit from talking to someone, then please come in,” she said.

“If you’re struggling with it, then you deserve the opportunity and the space to speak about it.”