Welcome To

Goulburn Region
Open Dialogue Connect

Goulburn Region, Victoria

A whole of community approach to youth mental health and wellbeing

Welcome to the GRODC community site! Your go-to for information on what we are doing, what we have coming up and how you can get involved.

Click HERE to view the GRODC Prospectus

Click HERE to view the GRODC Press Release

Training kick-off!

After the first day of Open Dialogue training last week in Shepparton to support a whole-of-community response to youth mental health and wellbeing in the region, ODC received this incredible message from Dr Tejas Golhar, Child and Adolescent psychiatrist at Goulburn Valley Health.

His words are moving, energising and inspired so please read on.

“For the 13 years I’ve lived and worked in this region as a child and youth psychiatrist, I’ve dreamed of professionals across all levels reorganising ourselves into an accessible, well-connected relational safety-net for our region’s struggling youth.

Today, it began!

Thirty five professionals from across different services in our region – professionals from the wellbeing team at the only public high school in the region, from various NGOs supporting youth in challenging times, clinicians from headspace and from the publicly funded local area mental health and wellbeing service, and, quite excitingly, peers from lived and living experience workforce – all of us turned up to TOGETHER start a year-long training in Open Dialogue.

We all share a desire to help, but not infrequently feel the pressure to “do” or “say” something (at times prematurely), which can inadvertently undermine the young person’s agency (“you don’t get it!”).

This training promises to be the antidote: fostering a core competency in relating – i.e. compassionate empowering deep listening, and “being there” authentically – irrespective of our backgrounds. It’s about connecting all of us into a strong, responsive, interlacing fabric of support/safety-net with a golden thread while allowing the young person to own their trapeze act.

I’m hopeful this is the start of a positive culture change for youth mental health, and that we can engage more services and organizations as we progress in our endeavour.”

Our thoughts?
This work is powerful and it’s only just beginning.
Open Dialogue training can bring people together through a shared agenda for change – for young people, for families, for the whole community and for our mental health system.

Our story so far

GRODC is now seeking support so that we can take the next steps in our collaborative work to transform mental health and wellbeing for young people in our region. Check out our story so far. So much has been achieved in just a few years.

Measurement and evaluation workshop success!

On June 5th, our collaboration to build a whole-of-community approach to improve youth mental health and wellbeing throughout the Goulburn Region felt alive and energising!

Clear Horizon facilitated a measurement and evaluation workshop on to support how the Open Dialogue Approach is implemented so that it can be sustained by the community for the long-term. We had a room full of community partners and young people who participated.

Our goal is to identify measures that are meaningful to the community and young people. Embedding their voices in our approach to measurement and evaluation is key to shaping how Open Dialogue will take form.

Voicing our community partners, young people

‘We are creating the conditions we need to bring the mental health service into the community so that our clinicians are working collaboratively with our community and with peer workers – outside of a clinical environment.’

– Sally Thomas, Manager – Infant, Child & Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Services, Goulburn Valley Health

‘A big part of what we are doing is the listening – and then acting on it. For young people who have experienced homelessness, Open Dialogue network meetings present a safe space for dialogue and connection.’

– Anita McCurdy, Senior Manager, Shepparton Youth Foyer