Staff and students across SuniTAFE’s campuses were encouraged to check in on themselves and their peers yesterday for World Mental Health Day.  

SuniTAFE is committed to providing a safe space for everyone who walks onto campus, including students, staff, and visitors.  

Observing occasions like World Mental Health Day provides a great opportunity to highlight this, while encouraging meaningful conversations.  

The initiative was led by SuniTAFE Manager of Wellbeing and Safety Racheal Fyfe.  

"This day allows us to reflect on what we can be doing in this space for ourselves. It's a good time to check in,” she said.  

“What are we doing for our own stress management? What are we doing for our own work life balance? What boundaries do we have in place to make sure that we are keeping physically and mentally well? And, of course, what are we doing to look out for colleagues?"  

To help encourage these questions, Founder of Mates Incorporated Corey Iredale was invited to talk to staff and students about his own experience with mental health challenges.  

He had a simple task for the audience which was to go beyond simply asking if someone is okay. Instead, ask them ‘what’s goin’ on, mate?’ to facilitate deeper conversations.  

“I think it’s very important for people to hear and see someone who has gone through challenges and who they can identify with,” Racheal said.  

Racheal’s work in the area of wellbeing and safety is concerned with ensuring that SuniTAFE’s focus on mental health is more than a once-a-year event.  

“My role is about facilitating systematic changes and addressing some of the underlying behaviours or the cultural changes that are needed to support a psychologically safe workplace,” she said. 

“We rolled out Mental Health First Aid Training to staff, so we now have 93 staff members that have this new resource in their toolkit. This helps us because it gives us a shared language and the baseline to all be on the same page. 

“We are also in the process of reviewing our Employee Assistance Program (EAP) contract to enhance the services for our employees.  

“We would like the EAP to be a part of our business transactions more often. We are really striving towards creating options for face-to-face interaction, as well as web or phone apps that support day-to-day wellbeing.” 

For help, support, or someone to talk to please visit https://worldmentalhealthday.com.au/need-help/.  

As an organisation, SuniTAFE is making strides towards addressing psychosocial health and safety in the workplace. Click here to read more about the Mental Health First Aid Training delivered to staff, or click here to read about SuniTAFE’s involvement in Respect and Equality at TAFE week earlier this year.