My Rural Story

particularly remote areas, where you need to do that reflection stuff because it’s about understanding who you are, being able to take ownership of who you are, develop who you are, but also, allow yourself to be changed in those settings. What has been one of your best experiences working in these remote communities? Probably all of my best experiences working in rural and remote areas have been situations where I’ve been able to contribute to community and see that change grow and flourish. An example would be doing LGBTIQ mental health work in the Kimberly and the Pilbara regions in Western Australia and seeing communities really struggling to take concepts on and struggle to adjust the way they’ve always done things and then, start to embrace them and get to a point where the whole community has

challenging, but very rewardingaswell and we have seen some very good outcomes in the mental health sector as a result of that. What advice would you give to students going on a rural or remote placement? One of the main things I would like students, particularly those going into rural, remote areas to reflect on would be being open to change. Being open to learning from people around them, particularly non-professionals around them, about their circumstances, about how life is different in rural, regional, remote areas. Part of that is learning how to shut up and listen to other people, observe and take those things on board as opportunities for learning and being able to grow from there. One of the other main things that I think students often benefit from is learning self-reflection. A lot of the time students don’t like to do reflective journals and reflective type practices. But, you’re put in a position when you’re working in, ‘These populations are more vulnerable, particularly in non- metropolitan areas because there are rarely LGBTIQ services or applicable resources’

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