Get Real: Talking mental health & disability

Send us Fan Mail Over summer, we’re revisiting some of our favourite GET REAL episodes. In this episode you'll meet James Harding and Steven Kline from Hard Cuddles , a peer support program which looks holistically at what it means to be a man in today’s society.  Through a combination of mentoring and outdoor therapy, James, Steven and their team help men to reconnect with themselves and fin...

Send us Fan Mail Over summer, we’re revisiting some GET REAL episodes of 2021. In this episode of GET REAL we meet Heidi Everett, who has lived experience of psychiatric wards and what she describes as living with a “psych reality”. Melbourne-based Heidi is an advocate, writer, poet, producer, performer, public speaker…and that’s not all. She released  a powerful debut book in 2021 called My Frien...

Send us Fan Mail We’re continuing our conversations about mental health and ways we can take care ourselves, and each other.  It’s been quite a year. The COVID-19 pandemic has been draining for people in so many ways and as a consequence of the sudden change to how we have to live our lives and mental health has been at the forefront of a national conversation like never before.  This is our final...

Send us Fan Mail This is the sixteenth episode in our Lived Experience series, where we speak with some remarkable people who have experienced and overcome adversity, and who are sharing their stories in a way that might help other people in need of support.  In this episode we meet Jill Stark, a Melbourne-based journalist, best-selling author and mental health advocate. Jill specialises in writin...

Send us Fan Mail We’re continuing our conversations about the mental health system, both in Victoria and in other states and the organisations that form part of this essential health service.   We know that the mental health system in Victoria, and in the other states and territories of Australia were already struggling to cope with demand, and that the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly blown ou...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of GET REAL we meet Bruce Perham, a social worker of more than 30 years who is also a family and narrative therapist. He is the director of a counselling collective called Let's Talk Differently , which specialises in the area of occupational fatigue within front-line responder professions.  Bruce’s career has mainly been in the not-for-profit sector and more...

Send us Fan Mail  In this episode of GET REAL we meet Robert “Bob” Macpherson, a veteran who served in the United States Marines for more than 30 years, serving in three conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq, and Somalia.    After retiring from the Marines, he joined the humanitarian organisation CARE, where he spent fifteen years directing global risk mitigation for staff and vulnerable populations and led...

Send us Fan Mail We’re continuing our conversations about the findings of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. These findings will reshape mental health services, not just in Victoria but potentially across Australia.   In this episode we talk about some of the  recommendations for reform specific to carers.  The royal commission findings have specific recommendations that wi...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of GET REAL we meet Heidi Everett, who has lived experience of psychiatric wards and what she describes as living with a “psych reality”. Melbourne-based Heidi is an advocate, writer, poet, producer, performer, public speaker…and that’s not all.   “My creativity and mental health advocacy are joined at the hip. Both require a little bit of courage and a cheeky atti...

Send us Fan Mail This is the 40th episode of Get Real: talking mental health and disability. It’s a special milestone for the podcast, and for ermha365 because it’s coming up to forty years since we were established by a group of passionate carers living in Melbourne, Australia who were concerned about the lack of support services for their loved ones who were experiencing a mental illness. A cont...

Send us Fan Mail Anna Spargo-Ryan is highly regarded Melbourne-based writer and author who cut her teeth working in digital comms for The Australian Grand Prix and the long-running Aussie TV soap Neighbours.   Mum of two Anna had her first child when she was 20 and prior to her pregnancy had a psychosis where she was “really unwell”. For Anna her pregnancy and arrival of her baby represented some...

Send us Fan Mail We’re continuing our conversations about the findings of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. These findings will reshape mental health services, not just in Victoria but potentially across Australia.   The focus of this episode is on the recommendations for reform specific to LGBTQ+ mental health services.  For the LGBTQ+ community, there’s “diversity within...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Get Real we meet Jessie Aiton. Jessie is an experienced radio producer and public speaker, having worked for the ABC in regional Western Australia and 3AW radio in Melbourne. While working in her high-pressure, fast-paced career in broadcasting, Jessie was going through a journey with her mental health:  “I was really fighting for my mental health, I was really...

Send us Fan Mail According to research by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs nearly half of Australian veterans who leave the Australian Defence Force (ADF) experience a mental health disorder within five years, which highlights the challenges associated with transitioning out of full-time military service and into civilian life.    The research also found that only 10 per cent of ex-ADF members...

Send us Fan Mail Melbourne-based author and teacher Ruth Clare’s memoir Enemy has been critically acclaimed and described as “Weaving a striking personal narrative with a revelatory exploration of the effects of war”.  Ruth is a survivor of childhood violence. Her father, traumatised from service in the Vietnam War, was violent and unpredictable. In this episode of GET REAL Ruth talks about her jo...

Send us Fan Mail A musical may not be the first thing that comes to mind as a way to convey the experiences of mental illness and how people cope in a crisis.   However, in this episode of GET REAL we speak to two people who will be bringing to the stage a rock musical that’s been described as “an unflinching look at a suburban family struggling with the effects of mental illness”. The show centre...

Send us Fan Mail For this episode of GET REAL, we are joined by Ray Blessing who shares his experience of parenting his transgender son Oisin. It’s an honest and touching conversation about the journey Ray and his family have travelled as they supported Oisin through his transition, and the additional aspects of mental health and addiction that have been part of this journey. Ray speaks compassion...

Send us Fan Mail In this honest, raw and illuminating episode of GET REAL, we are joined by Lauren McGovern, who shares her experience of being a transgender woman in Australia, her hopes for the future, and how allies can better support trans people with their mental health. Lauren grew up in Tasmania, where LGBT rights were a bitterly divisive issue for decades. Although things have changed sinc...

Send us Fan Mail The findings of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System are something that will shape the future of mental health services, not just in Victoria but potentially across Australia.  Every year around one in five Victorians experience mental health issues, and about 3 per cent of the population — roughly 200,000 people — have a "severe" mental illness such...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode you will hear our special guest Sue Roff, Executive Director at Arts Project Australia and ermha365’s Georgia Symmons explore how the arts and creativity have the power to unleash potential, support recovery and inspire and challenge what is possible for people who are living with mental health conditions and disability. Arts Project Australia is a creative social...

Send us Fan Mail People with a disability are chronically over-represented in the criminal justice system in Australia, making up 29% of the prison population, despite being only 18% the general population. This is a situation that has to change, something that the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability is hearing very clearly. Today Karenza Louis...

Send us Fan Mail In this powerful and moving episode of GET REAL, the first in our Lived Experience series for this year, we are joined by special guest Susan Berg.  At 15, Susan Berg was the sole survivor of a boating accident that claimed the lives of her Mum, Dad and 16-year old brother, Bill. Suffering from survivor guilt, she delved into a miserable life of self-loathing, anxiety and despair....

Send us Fan Mail 2020 was a tough year all round. And for people with a disability, and those that support them, it was a year of constant stress and anxiety, scrambling to provide disability support safely, while PPE and specific guidance for the disability sector were often in short supply.  Will 2021 be any better for people with a disability, and if so, how?  Today, GET REAL listeners have the...

Send us Fan Mail In our first GET REAL episode of 2021, we are delighted to talk to some very important people at ermha365, who do vital, often unseen work with people experiencing homelessness. At ermha365, we support people with complex needs related to mental health and disability. This sometimes means that the people we support struggle to maintain accommodation, or are homeless, or sleep roug...

Send us Fan Mail Over summer, we’re revisiting some of our favourite GET REAL episodes of 2020.  It’s February 2021, and not long now until we will see the final report from the Royal Commission into Mental Health in Victoria. The interim report, published in November last year, reflects the Commission’s desire to incorporate lived experience in all aspects of the mental health system, including t...