High school students from across the Upper Hunter gathered in Scone to discuss leadership, wellbeing and mental health at a summit organised by the Where There's A Will (WTAW) charity.
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The one-day workshop was designed and delivered by students who attended the National Student Leadership Summit in Adelaide with WTAW in March, bringing together students in years 10 and 11 from Merriwa Central School, Muswellbrook High, St Joseph's Aberdeen, Scone Grammar School and Scone High.
Lindy Hunt, the student leadership coordinator at WTAW, said the day was about connection, communication and leadership.
"Some of these students have never met each other before so the first part of the day is about connection and how important connection is for our mental health and wellbeing and that when we feel connected to something, we feel better about ourselves," Ms Hunt said.
"Then the middle session is about communication, discussing all the different forms of communication and how they can use it to connect with people and also lead activities."
Ms Hunt said the idea was for students who attended the summit to pull together what they learned to design and deliver a project focusing on mental health and wellbeing in their school or community.
"A lot of people say what does student leadership have to do with mental health and wellbeing?" Ms Hunt said.
"What we've found is that this is not just about giving students a voice, it's about student empowerment.
"It gives them the skills to be able to go back to their schools and be confident in what they're doing, be involved in designing what it is they do and then they have so much more ownership of it."
Ms Hunt said some of the projects designed by students who attended the summit in previous years included creating wellbeing rooms, radio programs and supporting new students in their first week of school.
Now in its sixth year, Ms Hunt said many students attending the leadership summit had already participated in WTAW programs for several years and as a result she had noticed a change in the level of discussions students are now having.
"Some of these kids have been doing it for six years now... they can talk about mental health and wellbeing quite openly and freely with a depth of understanding about it," Ms Hunt said.
"What's it going to be like in 10 years time when they bring their kids back to school?
"It's really exciting, and even though it's a long term project we can already see the difference."
Ms Hunt said WTAW works with 32 schools across the Upper Hunter region, from early childhood through to secondary education, to teach young people how to manage life's ups and downs.
With young people and the wider community in the Upper Hunter having faced drought, mouse plagues, COVID and floods in recent years, Ms Hunt said many of the parents and teachers she'd spoken to had been appreciative of the skills the students had learned through the WTAW programs.
"And that's our intention," she said.
"For there to be that ripple effect through the community."