Shooting Stars has been recognised for its focus on mental health, after being awarded the Mental Health Promotion Award at TheMHS Mental Health Service Awards last week.
The Awards acknowledge best-practice in delivery of mental health services, innovation, customer-focus and lived-experience leadership.
The Shooting Stars program is grounded in an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social and emotional wellbeing framework and is making a significant contribution to mental health outcomes using methods that are culturally appropriate.
The programs are tailored to each site, collaborating with schools, communities, stakeholders, and the participants themselves through localised steering committees and the Yarning with the Stars project.
Shooting Stars Research Manager, Rose Whitau said preventative health and wellbeing programs for Aboriginal young people tend to propagate Western, colonial paradigms, Aboriginal populations are targeted, yet Aboriginal voices are rarely heard throughout the planning, delivery and evaluation stages of program implementation.
“In order to balance the system in mental health service delivery, it is essential that the voices of program participants and the communities within which these programs serve, are provided a platform to determine what those outcomes are to be, and how they are to be achieved,” said Whitau.
“By adapting each program to meet the needs and expectations of each site, Shooting Stars is owned by the communities it serves, which is, in our opinion, best practice for mental health promotion delivery.”
