Applications Invited for Orygen Youth Mental Health Advocacy Fellowship 2021

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About the Organization:

Orygen believe that all young people deserve to grow into adulthood with optimal mental health. Everything they do is focused on that outcome. Their research is world-leading, impactful and creates change. Working directly with young people, their families and friends, they pioneer new, positive approaches to the prevention and treatment of mental disorders.

Orygen Youth Mental Health Advocacy Fellowship 2021

The Orygen Global Youth Mental Health Advocacy Fellowship is a six-month virtual program for 10 young people from across the globe that is passionate about youth mental health and wants to create change in the mental health landscape of their country.

The fellowship has been established to build the capacity, skills and voices of young people to create positive change in mental health awareness, policy and systems reform.

Modules:

The fellowship will consist of five modes of learning:

Education and training modules: The education modules are a core part of the fellowship and will be the platform to develop knowledge and insights for mental health advocacy. These may be live or pre-recorded lectures. Each module aims to build on each other and will include a strong emphasis on fellow interaction. Education modules will cover the following topics:

• Month 1: Defining mental ill-health, advocacy and personal development;
• Month 2: Safety in advocacy and sharing your personal mental health story;
• Month 3: Preparing for advocacy and developing a proposal for change;
• Month 4-5: Doing advocacy; and
• Month 6: After advocacy, creating sustainable change.

Mentoring: Mentoring will be used as a space for fellows to develop skills and expertise tailored to each fellow’s learning needs. These skills and expertise will help to equip the fellow with the resources and networks to enact their proposal for change. Mentoring will involve the fellow and mentor meeting monthly and is designed to be dynamic, personal and informal.

Peer support: Peer-to-peer support is an invaluable opportunity for the fellows to provide each other with strategic and emotional support. Fellows from diverse backgrounds and geographical areas will be paired together and will meet monthly.

Contact with leaders in global youth mental health: Beyond the impact of implementing their own proposal for change, fellows will be able to network with leaders in youth mental health from all around the world.

Contribution: One component of the fellowship will be experiential learning, which allows fellows to engage with the established work of Orygen.

Who can Apply?

They would love to hear from you if you:

• are aged 17-30-years-old (at the time of application);
• self-identify as having lived experience of mental ill-health personally or through family members or friends; or have a specific interest or skill in youth mental health;
• are from anywhere in the world. We are especially keen to hear from people in low and middle- income countries;
• you are able to challenge and offer suggestions for developing and implementing a variety of projects;
• have a clearly defined problem related to youth mental health you wish to address, a viable advocacy idea as to how you might approach it and the background and motivation needed to go forward; and
• you have permission from your parent/guardian to participate in the fellowship if you are under 18 years old.
• All fellowship material will be provided in English.

Duration of Fellowship

• The fellowship is a 6-month program. Fellows should aim to devote 8-10 hours of time each month to fellowship activities. This will vary from month to month but will include a combination of educational modules and individual or group-based work.
• Between the modules the fellows will maintain contact via an online platform to network, collaborate and share information and resources. It is expected that fellows will participate regularly in these discussions.

Deadline: Sunday 28 March 2021

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