Maffra Football-Netball Club and Mindfull Aus teamed up last round to spread vital mental health, behavioural health and suicide prevention awareness in the local community.
Following two Mindfull Aus health and well-being awareness seminars at Maffra FNC, the Eagles and the not-for-profit continued their partnership in Round 11 of the Gippsland League to discuss and raise awareness of mind and behavioural health and suicide prevention at the Battle of the Birds clash against Sale FNC.
On Saturday, June 24, when Maffra took on Sale, the Eagles donned green Mindfull Aus socks while netballers sported custom Mindfull Aus playing bibs.
A Mindfull Aus stall was stationed at the Maffra FNC grounds, allowing facilitators to integrate into the broader community, establish a connection, educate, facilitate relatable services, and equip people with the courage to take acceptance and onus for their well-being.
Maffra FNC’s Jon Dewsbury knows all too well the devastating effects of suicide, with his relationship to the deadly symptom of mental ill health a driving force to make real change within the local community, leading him to organise the Mindfull Aus round and seminars.
As well as being a close family friend, Dewsbury was 17-year-old Riley Pearce’s former coach at Moe FNC when the talented teen committed suicide in 2021.
The two families continue to foster strong friendships today.
“Matt Runnalls, who is the founder of Mindfull Aus, has done a lot with Riley’s family to promote mental health, to try to make a change, to try and break the stigma, just having that initial conversation highlighting what may be, you just don’t know until you have that initial conversation,” Dewsbury said.
“Mindfull Aus do some great things with a lot of sporting groups, schools, and businesses, and they also have another foundation apart of Mindfull Aus called the Tyson Bale Memorial; he was a young footballer from Warragul Industrials who took his life at the start of 2020.
“So, for me, this tries to break the change within our small community and remind people that it’s okay to talk, but it also helps us raise much-needed awareness for other sporting groups to have these conversations.
“There are a lot of foundations out there which do an amazing job, and I would never take anything away from what they do, but unfortunately for a lot of these foundations, it’s having these conversations after someone has passed away where Mindfull Aus has a big drive on having the conversation before they do anything.
“So recognising, highlighting, giving the support services, giving them what they may need that just may change someone’s mindset and just having that initial conversation which will eventually save a life.”
Mindfull Aus travels the country, establishing connections that provide individuals with the intrepidity to accept onus for their well-being, with facilitation from compassionate, lived-experience advocates and trained professionals with inspiring journeys that replicate wellness and a life of hope, healing, and recovery.
Having lived with a mental illness, surviving suicide attempts, and losing several friends to suicide, Mindfull Aus founder Matt Runnalls has worked as a mental health advocate to create awareness, acceptance, and education for nearly the past decade, utilising his knowledge of lived experience to encourage others to feel comfortable to speak up and manage their well-being just as he continues to do.
“The journey at Mindfull Aus is one that has been going for eight to 10 years now; we’ve been delivering workshops, programs and training right across the country,” Runnalls said.
“My background, my backyard is Gippsland, and I’ve lost 11 mates to suicide, and 75 per cent of those have come from Gippsland under the age of 25, so it’s a real passion area for me, its also where a lot of things went wrong for myself.
“I see these regional areas of the country that are ignored, that are under-resourced, but also people turn their back on, so it’s a big passion area for me to be able to do what I can to provide the education, information, the resources and the referral to help people get the skills, strategies and tools to combat life’s challenges.”
Working with 30 to 40 football-netball clubs in Gippsland, Maffra FNC is the latest sporting community to join Mindfull Aus in the fight to combat mental ill health and suicide.
“Maffra reached out to us just recently and said they want to join in,” Runnalls said.
“We’re super grateful to be able to work with the Maffra FNC and team up with them, not only for the game but in delivering workshops to their junior and senior netball and football and their parents and to be able to provide them with a foundational piece or workshop that helps them understand how we can show up better for each other and support the people around us so they can navigate through their challenges and get the thoughts, feelings and emotions they have on their chest up and out in the open.”
Runnalls highlights the particularly under-resourced mental health sector in regional and rural areas as a significant contributor to the rise in suicide rates outside of Australia’s metropolitan cities.
“The reason we see a lot of challenges in regional areas like Gippsland and why Gippsland is such a high-risk area across many facets, mind and behaviour health, addiction, drugs, violence, all these sorts of things is because it’s under-resourced,” Runnalls said.
“Statistically and evidence-based, the further you remove yourself from metro areas, the fewer chances of support you’ve got.
“For a kid in Maffra to say to his parents that he wants to go and see a psychologist, one, he has got to go and try to find a waitlist to get on and wait six months, and then two, his mum and dad have got to take a whole day off work to drive him to a resource that is in the metro area just to get to his appointment. Do you think that young kid is even going to ask his parents if he wants to go and see a psychologist when there is that level of burden on his back?
“Mindfull Aus provides more of these resources, skills and a small scale distraction techniques for people in the community until they can access the help and support they really need, yeah we’ve come a long way in teletherapy, and there are some great resources in our Gippsland community no doubt, but I don’t think you have to go too far to work out how under-resources and overwhelmed they are right now.”
Events like Maffra FNCs Mindfull Aus round and seminars are imperative in the community’s fight to ensure that no more families, no more sporting clubs, no more schools and no more friendship groups have to endure the loss and heartache known all too well to those who have lost a mum, a dad, a brother, a sister, a son, a daughter, an aunt, an uncle, a friend, to suicide.
Maffra FNC president John Brunt hopes the club can make a difference by partnering with Matt and his Mindfull Aus team.
“It is such a real issue in the world,” he said.
“Whether we get a good response or not, if we change one life or save one life, or we teach someone to recognise the signs and reach out to someone, we figure it’s a pretty good investment.
“We realise it’s in young people, it’s in all ages and with the group that we look after within the community, it is a real issue, so we just think it is a really good cause, and when Jon (Dewsbury) brought it up, we thought ‘yeah let’s go with it’ because it is a real issue within our community and if we can help by doing this that would be great.”
The seminars and Mindfull Aus-themed round couldn’t have gone better, thought Dewsbury, who was instrumental in bringing Maffra FNC and Mindfull Aus together.
“Maffra really showed their support for Mindfull Aus at the weekend; everywhere you looked, there was green, especially around the netball courts,” Dewsbury said.
“We were extremely lucky to have Matt at the game sharing his knowledge, his story, resources and skills from the Mindfull Aus stall.”
Rannalls has inspired Dewsbury to continue spreading mental health and suicide awareness and education throughout the local community, with Dewsbury making big plans to integrate Mindfull Aus with other sporting organisations outside Maffra FNC, his workplace and other community groups.
To help support Mindfull Aus to continue their mental health and suicide prevention education and awareness within the community, across the state and the nation, former Maffra footballer and current Adelaide Crows midfielder Sam Berry donated two Adelaide Crows guernseys to the Eagles.
Between sales of raffle tickets for the chance to win the prized Adelaide Crows memorabilia and Mindfull Aus merchandise sales, the Maffra FNC community raised more than $2500 for Mindfull Aus, ensuring the mental health charity can continue their work and spread their message of acceptance and hope with another sporting club or community group.
If you or anyone you know needs help
Lifeline 13 11 14
Kids Helpline 1800 551 800
Beyond Blue 1300 224 636
Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467
Headspace 1800 650 890
Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Crisis Support Line 13YARN 13 92 76
MensLine Australia 1300 789 978
Open Arms Veterans & Families Counselling 1800 011 046
