Announcement of the Next Generation Researcher Network Capacity-Building Seed Funding Scheme 2025
Congratulations to this year’s award recipients: Caroline Walters (Monash University), Kirsten Hillman (University of Melbourne) and Melissa Opozda (Flinders University). See below for details of each project.
Caroline Walters (Monash University – Lived-Experience Researcher Led)
Meeting the Needs of Mental Health Family Carers through a Family Carer Lived Experience Worker Telephone Support Line
Receiving support from someone with similar experiences to you has been internationally noted as highly valued by mental health family carers. Peer-to-peer telephone helplines have been established for carers in Australia. An example of this is Tandem Carers’ Support and Referral Line, staffed by advisors with their own lived experience of providing support and care for people with mental health challenges. The service enables family carers to receive general advice, advocacy and information on services to meet needs, from someone who understands their situation. Archival records held by Tandem, show exponential growth in the numbers of calls since being established in 2017. Understanding reasons for accessing the service, the types of help provided, and how a peer led helpline supports family carers will improve service development. This project will explore the benefits and challenges of the helpline for family carers including across diverse communities and locations within Victoria. Through a review of the literature, an analysis of archival records, group and individual interviews with people who have used the support line, the potential of peer-to-peer telephone support in meeting family carer needs can be determined. These lines may be especially beneficial in areas where services are difficult to access.
Kirsten Hillman (University of Melbourne – Next Generation Researcher Network Led)
Amplifying micro-narratives of recovery through arts-based story making
This arts-based project aims to uncover and amplify aspects of mental health recovery journeys which are often overlooked, through ‘micro-storytelling’. Creative methods will be used to support people with lived experience to create a story representing a meaningful moment that may have been omitted in previous narrations of their stories when navigating health services– called a micro-story. The research will employ a participatory co-research methodology within an arts-based narrative inquiry framework. Participants will engage in a series of workshops using digital arts methods that facilitate the exploration and expression of affective, emotive, and sensory experiences that are often less articulated in mainstream narratives of recovery. The project will implement a number of actions prioritised in the ALIVE Consensus statements, including highlighting differences in recovery, addressing the impacts of stigma through storytelling in community and healthcare settings, and promoting lived experience in all aspects of research through foregrounding co-researchers’ experiential knowledge. Alternative storytelling avenues may allow for new ways to deeply listen to and maintain the “whole” of a person’s story, aligning the project with the five ALIVE Foundation Actions, in particular, that everyone can be an agent for change, and that deep listening is essential.
Melissa Opozda (Flinders University – Next Generation Researcher Network Led)
The Well Fellas Project (Phase 1): Co-designing Recommendations to Inform Development of Online Single-Session Mental Health and Wellbeing Interventions for Adolescent Boys and Young Men
Adolescent boys and young men (ABYM) experience high rates of mental health and wellbeing challenges but are among the least likely groups to access mental health support. Many ABYM face barriers to help-seeking, including stigma, waiting lists, costs, distance, and privacy concerns. Single-session interventions (SSIs) are short, self-guided online interventions designed to provide knowledge and practical strategies for improving mental health and wellbeing in one sitting, usually under an hour. Research shows that online SSIs can reduce distress, build coping skills, and encourage help-seeking, but little is known about how well they meet the preferences and needs of ABYM. This project prioritises the voices and expertise of ABYM with lived experience of mental ill-health, psychological distress, and related challenges such as substance use and gambling. Informed by active collaboration with a lived-experience advisory group at all stages, an online mixed-methods survey will gather detailed insights into barriers and enablers to ABYM engagement with online SSIs, as well as their preferences for topics, formats, and access. Findings will inform a framework of recommendations to guide future co-design of accessible, acceptable, and effective online SSIs for ABYM.
