Our five headspace centres and their respective community networks in Maroochydore, Gympie, Caboolture, Toowoomba and Bundaberg, have participated in the annual Push Up Challenge 1-25 June.

The fundraiser is Australia’s largest mental health and fitness initiative, with over 130,000 Australians from all walks of life joining the push for better which injects over $25,000 into our five (5) Youturn run headspace centre operations explains Nicholas Fawcett, Youturn’s General Manager Clinical Services.

“headspace is a free service helping young people aged 12-25 with mental and physical health, education and employment, alcohol and other drug services, funded by the Australian Government,” said Nicholas Fawcett.

“Funds from the Push Up Challenge will go towards activities out of scope of our core program funding, such as small group work, special events and youth engagement activities in each community,” he said.

Get fit, have fun, learn about mental health is how the Push Up Challenge works.

Getting fit involved challenging yourself to complete 3,318 push-ups over 25 days, putting the spotlight on the number of suicides in Australia 2019.

Have fun, whilst building comradery, with entire workplaces, fitness centres, sports club, and schools getting involved, and at the same time highlighting how a push-up target relates to vital mental health statistics in Australia is really motivating.

Youturn and our headspace teams have been inspired by the dedication and energy of community participants and enjoyed the opportunity to connect at various Push Up Party events throughout the month.

On the back of this fundraiser, our headspace centres have also benefited from major Australian government budget announcements for:

• headspace Gympie upgrade and expansion from a satellite centre to a full centre
• headspace Caboolture and headspace Toowoomba funded initiatives to help reduce wait times

The Gympie announcement is particularly exciting for Youturn and stakeholders, and reward for a sustained high performance on limited resources by our Gympie team supported by headspace Maroochydore, explains centre manager Heidi Walsh.

“We are very grateful to Our PHN and federal Government member and advocate for mental health Llew O’Brien for listening to us and local Gympie community on the need for an expansion,” Heidi Walsh said.

Look for more news over the coming months, on how these funding injections are making a real difference to youth mental health in each community.