By Angela Borgerding and Lisa Mallett (aka “The Mapsys”)
During our second week in Melbourne we visited a fantastic organization called Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre, whose vision is to create “a digitally connected world where technologies are used to support young people to feel safe, healthy and resilient.” 
One of the great things about this agency is that they invite young people to share in the research process to come up with solutions to mental health and wellness issues affecting themselves and their peers This group of individuals, also known as The Youth Brains Trust acts as an advisory board to Young and Well CRC, helping them to explore and promoted technologies that will have the best outcomes for young people struggling with mental health issues. This process has been so successful that even years later they have had many young people remain involved with the organization.
One type of solution Young and Well CRC has envisioned is the use of mobile applications to reach young people. While they have created several already, one such app, called “@appreciate a Mate”, can be downloaded for Android and iPhone. This app was created to assist young people in expressing positive messages to each other over several different platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This app is interesting in that it is very easy to use, it is fun, and it can communicate
very simple messages that actually hold a lot of meaning. They also received feedback from boys to ensure that the available content was appealing to them as well, and that they had the opportunity to send meaningful messages to each other that may otherwise be more difficult as males to communicate.
Another interesting component to this app is that the artwork for the messages was designed by Zuni and Digital Arts Network, Sydney by artists who are young themselves. Young and Well CRC wanted to ensure that young people were included in as many stages of the creation of @ppreciate as possible. With messages of appreciation created by 33 young graphic artists from around the world, it is easy to find just the right message to show someone you care. In only a few weeks after launch, Young and Well CRC reported that over 35,000 messages had been sent by users of the @ppreciation app.
During many of our agency visits there seemed to be a focus on providing client centered and client driven services. Our visit to the Y-PARC emphasized this by their ability to model skills for the client as well as by empowering them to make their own choices in regards to medication, lifestyle, and overall well-being. By empowering youth (as well as having legal provisions that allow youth to make these decisions) this agency is able to truly to demonstrate the social work core value of respecting the inherent dignity and worth of a person. This core value not only focuses on emphasizing a client’s self-determination, but recognizing and working with the individual differences among clients. It was very clear that Mind has a clear mission to work with clients at an individual level, while also maintaining their responsibility to the broader society and encouraging the community to be involved in the client’s treatment.
Apart from our visit to many great agencies this week, we had the opportunity to experience travelling the Great Ocean Road. Mindfulness and meditation were both deeply incorporated into the trip, as well as emphasizing being fully present in the moment. Mindfulness has recently become emphasized in our social work program and has been encouraged for students to use for self-care throughout their course work and ultimately their career. Discussions around our experience with meditation and mindfulness on the trip led to the realization and understanding that each person has their own form of self-care and although we should encourage a wide variety of self-care techniques, it is ultimately up to the individual to decide what self-care practices they find most useful.
This led to a discussion on remembering that the client is the expert in their life and that when working with any group of people it is important to remember that each individual lives their own experience and heals in their own way. When a client comes for services our job is not to prescribe them what we deem the solution to their problems, but rather to help them reach an understanding of their problems and to encourage them to solve their own issues. Although this can be difficult and we sometimes believe that we know best, we must remember that it is not our job to fix clients or to tell them the correct way to change their lives.