Can We Talk? Lifting the lid on demons that taunt

A 10-year-old boy with suicidal thoughts. A 16-year-old girl whose schoolmates taunt her. These are some of the stories that emerged at The Sunday Telegraph’s Can We Talk? forum at West Tamworth Leagues Club.

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A TEN-year-old boy with suicidal thoughts. A 16-year-old girl whose schoolmates taunt her because she seems so withdrawn. A 14-year-old boy who seems permanently angry.

These are some of the stories that emerged at The Sunday Telegraph’s Can We Talk? forum at West Tamworth Leagues Club on Tuesday night.

Parents, teachers and concerned friends gathered at the club to hear the Can We Talk? panel of experts and mental illness survivors talk about practical strategies to help young people, including getting in the habit of sharing emotions with children, listening openly when kids vent about feeling bad, directly asking if they are feeling depressed or suicidal and starting a conversation with teachers and school staff about what might be going on.

Listening is a crucial skill we can all use, even without clinical training, said former NRL star Dan Hunt, who now works as an ambassador with the National Rugby League’s State Of Mind program.

Hunt spoke frankly about how sport helped get him through a childhood dominated by domestic violence.

Even once he made it to first grade, however, Hunt was trapped in a cycle of emotional highs and lows his teammates dubbed “the rollercoaster”, and it wasn’t until coach Wayne Bennett confronted him and asked him what was wrong.

Hunt summoned his courage, drove himself to the Black Dog Institute and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Another of the NRL’s ambassadors, former Eels star Nathan Hindmarsh, will be at our next forum in Orange on June 28, proudly hosted by ­Orange Ex-Services Club and presented with our partners Clubs NSW, headspace, the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Research Institute, NSW Police and Lifeline.

* To register and for more information, go to dailytelegraph.com.au/canwetalk