Town unites to boost belonging after GP's survey shows where loneliness lies
Ahead of October's Mental Health Month, Equilibrium Healthcare is launching a new community campaign in Helensburgh
When a Helensburgh GP put out a survey, he wasn’t expecting to unite the town in a push to boost belonging. But the answers to his questions about mental health upended expectations.
The first surprise was often the word 'connection' appeared in survey responses.
"People with stronger support, belonging and meaningful connections consistently tended to report better mental wellbeing," said Equilibrium Healthcare owner Dr Trevor Kemper.
The second shock was that the loneliest people weren't who he thought they were.
“The extent of loneliness among the under-25s really surprised me,” Trevor said. “We had perhaps expected the 75+ age group to be more vulnerable to loneliness, but in our survey they were actually the most connected and least lonely age group.
“Young people, LGBTQI+ people and neurodivergent people all reported particular difficulties around distress, connection or belonging. While this wasn’t especially surprising, the degree of isolation was disturbing and has directly shaped the next stage of the program.”
The findings inspired Trevor to launch a series of 'Community Connection' meetings. About 25 people attended the first one, held at Equilibrium HQ on Walker Street last Wednesday, 19 August.
“There was quite a broad cross-section represented, including The Salvation Army, Baptist and Anglican churches, Rex Jackson Oval Parkrun, Coalcliff Surf Life Saving Club, Helensburgh Thistles Soccer Club, the Men’s Shed, Glow Girls, craft groups, local fitness providers, community advocates, local businesses including Burgh Healthy Hub and The Local on Walker, 2508 Collaborate members, a local counsellor, as well as our team.”
The second meeting – set for 6:30pm next Wednesday, 2 September – will examine how to make the community truly welcoming for everyone.
“We’re holding another session specifically looking at how community organisations can better engage young people, LGBTQI+ people and neurodivergent people,” Trevor said.
“We’ll have people with relevant lived and professional experience giving practical advice about relatively simple things clubs and organisations can do differently.
“I have amazing patients in all of these demographics and a lot of them struggle to find their place because of a host of prejudices and a lack of understanding.”
Helensburgh’s efforts echo a global act of affirmation. "Together We Thrive” is the theme for both Australia's Mental Health Month in October and World Mental Health Day on 10 October. It recognises that, while life feels like a lot – what with the cost-of-living crisis, overseas wars and an AI revolution – everyday connection is vital to wellbeing. Acts like volunteering, joining a team or simply sharing a cuppa really are good for us.
To figure out how best to help, Trevor tried to make his recent survey broad enough to pick up trends rather than elicit standard replies.
“As I was analysing the responses – there was a lot of analysis! – it became clear that some of the strongest findings weren’t so much about mental health services,” Trevor says. “Connection, belonging, and participation repeatedly came out as strongly protective factors in mental health, along with physical activity.
“As a general practice we can make it easier for somebody to seek help, recognise anxiety, depression or distress earlier and provide good healthcare. We can’t prescribe someone a group of friends or give them a sense of community belonging – but we’d really love to be able to help with that!”
The practice already knew Helensburgh was home to good groups and people, a legacy of October 2023's "Fit for Life" program. So Trevor decided to pull in everyone, from volunteers to businesspeople. The question was how to make changes to mental health in a non-medical, accessible way.
“We wanted to put the findings in front of the people who are already doing this work and ask: 'What can we do together?'
“There was a lot of enthusiasm in the room, and discovering how much is already happening locally was really heartening. The problem isn’t simply that we need more activities – it’s that we aren’t very good at connecting people with what’s already here, and many of the organisations themselves don’t always know what the others are doing.”
There are now moves afoot to launch an online community noticeboard and October's mental health campaign will built around three words: “Seek, Connect, Move.”
The first step, Seek, encourages people to ask for help early, as Equilibrium’s survey revealed a concerning statistic.
“People who had avoided seeking help because they didn’t think their problem was 'serious enough' actually had some of the highest levels of distress in the survey,” Trevor said.
“It told us that there a lot of people in our community who are suffering in silence, thinking that their mental health issue isn't serious enough, or that they could manage it themselves.”
Early discussion revolved around helping marginalised groups feel more welcome. As a result, Equilibrium will help develop principles to encourage inclusion and belonging, particularly for LGBTQI+ and neurodivergent people and under-25s.
“We also talked about the shortage of ‘third spaces', places outside home, work and school where people can simply spend time and connect," Trevor said.
"The closure of the Community Centre and debate about its future came into that, as did the difficulty some groups have finding affordable places to meet. On the positive side, local cafes have been making space available for some smaller social groups.
“Interestingly, we also realised that not everything should be advertised. Some peer-support groups exist that rely on privacy and discretion. So connecting people isn’t necessarily as simple as putting every group into an online directory, sometimes what is needed is a trusted person who knows what’s available and can quietly make the connection."
Trevor hopes his Community Connection work will continue even after October's Mental Health Month.
"It’s actually pretty exciting.
“There is already an enormous amount of goodwill and activity in 2508. If we can make what already exists easier to find, easier to join and more welcoming to people who currently feel disconnected, I think we can make a genuine difference."
Contact Equilibrium Healthcare on 02 4294 1955.
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