Everyday spaces saving regional lives

By Mahalia Gainer 

MENTAL health support does not always start in the doctor’s office – sometimes it begins over a cup of coffee at the local cafe, in the back of a ute or at the pilates studio.

According to South Australian Mental Health Commissioner Taimi Allan, these simple acts of human connection form the foundation for true regional wellbeing.

Ms Allan has travelled across South Australia over the last three years, opening the door to real, messy and often emotional conversations.

“There’s so many people with lived experience of surviving and thriving despite the challenges that have been thrown at them, but they don’t tell other people in their community until I turn up,” she said.

She noted that while regional communities excel in practically helping each other, from giving a neighbour a hand to supporting a local business, emotional vulnerability can be a different story.

But these existing community connections are often the very places where people feel safe to open up, reducing their sense of burden and isolation.

“If it’s not needed, you don’t have to have a psychiatrist, or a psychologist even, or an emergency department. You can actually rock up to your local cafe and talk to the barista, or have a chat on the back of the ute when you’re going over and checking the fences,” she said.

By having candid conversations, Ms Allan hopes to normalise speaking up early and help residents lean on each other long before life’s pressures turn into a crisis.

A significant example of this is when the commissioner met a regional worker who had lost somebody to suicide during a visit to a town.

    “[He] was an incredibly sensitive, caring, and understanding person in those sorts of calls where he had to turn up to people that were in suicidal crisis,” she said.

“But the community didn’t know that he also had this personal experience until he spoke that aloud at a community meeting…what it allowed others to do in that community was also speak up about the stuff that they found hard.”

Through openly sharing her own experiences with mental distress, Ms Allan leads by example to break down taboos and deepen community ties.

“I bring my own lived experience into the room…I think that always helps because I talk about it as if it is…just such a normal part of being a human, that our lives are messy and complicated, and some days we can turn up to work and be in tears, and other days we want to put our head under the duvet, and all those things are normal,” she said.

“What’s not normal is that we keep a lid on it, and we keep it hidden so much until things become in crisis.”

While facing mental health challenges in her childhood into her 20s, Ms Allan experienced electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and seclusion in a locked ward. “I was a connoisseur of South Australian mental health services for a long time,” she said.

Decades on, after taking her mental health into her own hands, the services are a far cry from what Ms Allan experienced, often featuring nicer facilities, peer support and new services, including digital health.

For regional communities, online services are particularly important.

“It goes without saying that distance exacerbates everything. As do fewer choices,” she said.

Ms Allan said her time in regional towns has shown her that people not only have less options, but often worry seeking help could become town gossip.

While digital health is helping bridge this gap, the commissioner says it is vital that services are also available in locations that are less likely to carry prejudice and discrimination, like community centres or local libraries.

Beyond facilitating conversations, the commissioner uses what she learns from her regional visits to advocate for change.

“My favourite part of my job is getting out in the car and going and visiting communities, because then you hear first-hand from people what it is actually like to live on the ground,” she said.

“I try to do it in a mindful way by trying really hard to listen to what are the underlying system, policy, service, stories we can actually make a change and government might be prepared to and able to make that change.”

A notable example of this for the commissioner was in Mount Barker, where an underlying transport issue was impacting residents’ mental health.

As a result, the State Government has since invested in additional Adelaide Hills public transport, including close to 600 extra weekly bus services through new Mount Barker express routes.

Ms Allan’s core advice to regional South Australians remains simple: speak up early and share the load.

“We do have the things and the people and animals around us that we love that are quite willing to hear and hold that conversation for us, but we’re too afraid to burden them with it,” she said.

“We have to overcome the feeling that we are a burden to others. Feeling burdensome can cost lives.”