Shine Awards 2022: Ararat women on mental health mission win Grace category

Two women who have made rural youth mental health their mission are winners of the award for Grace. Meet the finalists.

The Weekly Times Shine Award for Grace goes to a nominee whose poise and composure holds her community together.

One of six categories in the awards, which celebrate Australia’s rural women, Grace honours those who quietly get things done. This year’s joint winners are youth mental health advocates Carly McKinnis and Tammie Meehan for delivering crucial support services through their One Red Tree Resource Centre. Finalists are Robyn Fuhrmeister from St George, Queensland, and Alana Sheridan from Green Forest, NSW. Read their stories:

2022 WINNER: CARLY McKINNIS and TAMMIE MEEHAN

Youth mental health support service founders, Ararat, Victoria

Carly McKinnis and Tammie Meehan are founders of One Red Tree Resource Centre at Ararat. Picture: Nicole Cleary

Carly McKinnis and Tammie Meehan call what they do “building relationships”, but “saving lives” is more apt.

Psychologist Carly and teacher Tammie both grew up in Ararat, and are determined to improve access to mental health support for rural youth, so they get help before they reach crisis point.

The pair have created a mental health services group that places psychology students in schools across western Victoria, rewriting how support can be delivered and accessed by rural people.

Not only do families receive essential help not previously available, but psychologists get a taste of how rewarding rural work can be.

“Part of the journey along the way really has to do with suicide,” explains Carly, who lost two teenage friends to suicide in secondary school.

It is part of what drew her to the career, and also what pulled her back to Ararat in 2005.

“We have lost quite a number of people of my Year 12 class to suicide over the years. A disproportionate amount I would say,” she says.

Now with children of her own, Carly is one of few clinical psychologists in the western half of the state. When Covid hit, she was so inundated with requests for appointments, she had to close her books.

She lost two clients to suicide at that time, followed swiftly by a local GP and a teacher at the local primary school taking their own lives. The deaths were devastating, and she was determined to make more help available.

Tammie, meanwhile, also saw the desperate need for mental health support for students, parents and teachers in her role as acting principal at an Ararat school at the time.

“There was such a need,” she says. “It was kind of a ‘if you build it, they will come’ situation.”

She and Carly drafted a plan to place provisional psychologists – master’s students completing their practical placement – in schools.

There was huge enthusiasm for the idea from local teachers and Federation University’s psychology department.

Their One Red Tree Resource Centre was founded about a year ago.

Tammie and Carly worked for free for six months to get the program up and running.

They have placed 16 psychology students in schools this year, and next year will place 28 across 17 schools.

“The way things work in small towns is about relationships and trust. We have worked very hard to build that up,” Carly says.

For their unwavering commitment to deliver mental health services to rural communities, and make it viable for psychology professionals to choose a career in the regions, Carly McKinnis and Tammie Meehan are the perfect winners of the Shine Award for Grace.

Launched in 2017, The Weekly Times Shine Awards, supported by Harvey Norman, celebrates the contributions of Australia’s rural and regional women.

This year, 120 nominations were received for rural women in every state and territory.

Finalists were announced last week and today winners have been revealed in six categories: Belief, Courage, Dedication, Grace, Passion and Spirit.

Meet the other finalists in the Grace category.

FINALIST: ROBYN FUHRMEISTER

Care Balonne founder, St George, Queensland

Robyn Fuhrmeister is hoping to be re-elected to Balonne Shire Council.

When Robyn Fuhrmeister says she cares, she means it.

The long-time Balonne Shire councillor from St George, Queensland, is the founder of a community organisation that provides holistic care to the most vulnerable in the community, including essential mental, emotional and financial support services.

Including Meals on Wheels, an Active Seniors Program, family services and referrals for people facing domestic violence or other abuse, Care Balonne is what Robyn describes as a “one-stop shop” for community support.

“We get lots of sad stories walking into Care Balonne, it’s not all happy, but we deal with those and I think to have someone here to listen to your concerns, that’s what community is all about,” Robyn says.

As founder and chair of the group, Robyn says she was determined to help other people avoid the hardships she faced as a young mother after the breakdown of her first marriage.

“In those days you didn’t have benefits or pensions to rely on so I went back to work and I could see so many things in the community that needed to be addressed,” she says.

“When I was going through my issues there was no one there to help me.

“I decided from that day on that I didn‘t want anyone to live through the ordeal that I lived through without having any community services there to support them, so I started Care Balonne and ran for council.”

She has spent 27 years on the council, and her dedication to the community has continued even after the loss in 2019 of her second husband, Richard, who died from motor neurone disease.

The people of St George, and surrounding communities in Balonne Shire, have faced more than their fair share of heartache in recent years as well.

Years of bitter drought have been followed by recent floods, with floodwater cutting residents off from service centres.

“For the residents that live there, we make sure that they have their medical scripts, that they have vouchers for food, or we send down hampers for them.

“Once those communities re-open we’re down there quick as lightning to put on events to try to get them communicating with the rest of the public.”

She says it is a pleasure to give back to her community.

“When I had nothing the community would turn up to me with a bag of mandarins or a leg of mutton and I would never have coped without the community giving me that support,” she says.

FINALIST: ALANA SHERIDAN

Farmer, Green Forest, NSW

Alana Sheridan has not given up on her dream of buying her own farm to run her cattle, despite the setback of the floods in northern NSW.

Rolling with the punches is something Alana Sheridan has had to perfect in the past nine months. Severe flooding in northern NSW destroyed her family home as well as 10 cattle, 100 chickens and 13,000 macadamia trees on the farm where she worked.

In February this year, Alana and her husband, Tim, did their best to save not just their own family and herd near Lismore, but their neighbours as well.

The couple spent hours on the roof of their house at Green Forest watching floodwaters rise around them before using a boat to ferry everyone to safety during the night.

“The worst part was listening to other people’s cattle and horses during the night floating past,” Alana says. “It was heartbreaking to hear. That broke us more than anything.”

The Sheridans had put their cattle on a 2m-high flood pad but the water came up 3.5m.

Their stock losses included Alana’s daughter’s prized show cattle and hand-reared calves. Shoulder-deep water filled the family’s house and the children’s school was badly damaged.

Since the flooding, Alana and her family have stayed in eight different homes, relying on the generous hospitality of family and friends and juggling the ongoing flood threat as rain events have continued to cloud the eastern seaboard.

“We try to be as positive as we can and it is looking very positive as long as we don’t get too much more rain,” Alana says. “We nearly had another flood the other day and there was panic stations because we had the calves down here in the yards but we had our cattle carrier on standby if need be.”

Since the floods, Alana’s 100 Braford cattle have been temporarily agisted on three different properties, but despite the setbacks, Alana has not given up and walked away from her dream of buying her own farm.

“We’ve been trying to save enough money for the past 10 to 15 years, trying to build our herd up to sell enough to be able to get into the farm market,” she says.

“It’s a hard market to get into. I just love the animals and the land. It’s not a glamorous lifestyle … it’s hard work but we love it.”