Launceston podcast wins top spot in national award

DECEMBER 12 2021 - 3:00PM

A Launceston produced and clinically led mental health podcast has won first place at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards.

Get Psyched, a six-part podcast produced by Healthy Tasmania covered a range of mental health issues faced by young people in the state.

Healthy Tasmania creative director Penny Terry said the win was a great result for the team, mental health awareness and regional communities driving for change.

"We were so excited," she said. "Sometimes people underestimate what we can do in regional Australia and regional Tasmania.

"To know that something we created here about some really important issues is up on the national stage, and is the best wellbeing podcast in Australia - we couldn't be more excited."

Ms Terry said the podcast was produced in conjunction with clinicians from Headspace, and informed by young people with lived experiences of the issues the podcast addressed.

"The whole podcast was co-created, so we worked with clinicians, we worked with a group of young people through the Headspace heart committee, we spoke with friends and families, parents and carers about what are the big issues that people come into headspace around, and that helped to create the questions we talked about," she said.

Luke Bracey was one of the young adults who worked on the production and said the true value of the award was the recognition of a significant issue that was still being stigmatised.

"There's not a lot of male people that represent mental health," he said.

"We seem to shy away from it and see it as a weakness, so if I could just get my voice out a little bit, kind of share my experience, I felt like it was a very important thing to do.

"The main thing is the awareness it brought to people that were listening, people that could have mental health issues of their own, but have been too scared to speak out about them," he said.

Headspace national clinical lead Caroline Thain said the process had been incredibly rewarding.

"You know, when we think about producing a piece of work like this it comes together because of people working together in collaboration," she said.

"It's the creativity of Healthy Tasmania, the wisdom of our clinicians, and the lived experience and role modelling of our young people that made the podcast what it was."

Ms Terry said following the success of the production and the feedback from members of the community the team were eager to build on the success of the podcast and hopefully produce a second series.

This article was originally published in The Examiner Newspaper and can be accessed here