This team is focused on four main areas:

1) establishing the prevalence of common mental health problems in rural adolescents

2) understanding the experience of mental illness for adolescents residing in rural areas

3) investigating the barriers to mental health service utilization for adolescents in rural Australia

4) designing programs that will assist rural adolescents in overcoming barriers to seeking professional psychological help

We welcome contact from practitioners and researchers in the field of rural mental health. Any group member may be contacted via the group’s email address: ubramhgroup@gmail.com

News and Information

A 2007 Carrick Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning has been awarded to Dr Candice Boyd:

For the development of an effective mentoring group that enables students from rural areas achieve academic success through engagement in research with high social impact.

This award recognizes and acknowledges the unique, postgraduate learning environment that the RAMH Group provides for its student members.

Congratulations to Jessica Sewell, postgraduate student member of the RAMH group, who was awarded a $500 Special Grant from the Australian Federation of University Women for overcoming significant barriers to participation in higher education as a young woman from a farming family affected by drought.

Newsletters

Our newsletters describe the outcomes of recently completed group projects. If you would like to be on the mailing list for the newsletter, which is distributed electronically in December, please email us.

2006 Newsletter
2007 Newsletter

Group members and their current projects

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  Candice Boyd

Candice is senior lecturer, clinical psychologist and leader of the RAMH group. She has a background in child and adolescent psychology and a publication track record in adolescent mental health. Her particular interest is in social geographic barriers to accessing psychological care in rural areas. Her current projects include a quantitative study of rural adolescents’ attitudes to seeking psychological help and a qualitative, film-making project involving rural adolescents with mental illness funded through the City of Ballarat Community Development Fund. In addition to these projects, she supervises the work of the group’s postgraduate student members.

  Damon Aisbett

Damon is a PhD candidate and the group’s research officer. He has been a member of the group since it began in 2005 and has published widely on the barriers to mental health service utilization experienced by rural adolescents with mental health problems. His current project aims to develop a psychometrically sound measure of social geographic barriers to access and utilization of rural mental health services.

  Krystal Newnham

Krystal is a Doctor of Psychology candidate. She has been a member of the group since 2005. Her current project involves the development and evaluation of school-based intervention to reduce social stigma of mental illness amongst rural adolescents.

  Jessica Sewell

Jessica is a Doctor of Psychology candidate. Her current project aims to investigate the effects of geographic displacement on the mental health and well-being of rural university students who study away from home. 

  Sarah Nurse

Sarah is a Master of Psychology candidate. Her project will explore rural adolescents’ attitudes and experiences of providing peer support for mental health problems. This study is being conducted in partnership with Anne Watson at Ballarat Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service.

  Lisa Harvie

Lisa is a Master of Psychology candidate with an interest in eating disorders and evidence-based practice. Her project aims to develop a better understanding of treatment and referral patterns of regional GPs regarding their eating disorder patients.

  Kirra Caldwell

Kirra is a Graduate Diploma of Education candidate with a special interest in rural populations and resilience. Her research, which is has been prepared for publication, focused on farming families ability to adapt to adverse circumstances, specifically drought.

  Joan Morphett

Joan is Master of Psychotherapy and Counselling student with an interest in rural mental health. She is currently undertaking a study to further explore parent-mediated pathways to helpseeking for rural adolescents with depression.

  Trudy Clutterbok

Trudy is a Master of Psychotherapy and Counselling candidate and currently works for Hepburn Health Services in Daylesford. Her project is investigating access and obstacles to support and treatment for rural people with mental illness.

  Melissa Currie

Melissa Currie is a Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) (Honours) student. Her current project will investigate rural, regional, and urban differences in social stigma towards rural youth with mental health problems.

  Louise Hayes

Louise is an experienced clinically trained psychologist with special interests in child, adolescent and parent mental health. Her focus is applied research in clinical, school and community settings with parents, adolescents and children. This extends from clinical treatments to early intervention and prevention for families and children. As a RAMH group member, she is a major contributor to a project investigating the dissemination of evidence-based practice to rural clinicians. This project is nested within her major study of the efficacy of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as treatment for adolescent depression in rural settings – funded by BeyondBlue.

Research Partners

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Ballarat Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service

Our original research partner in our foundation year, Joy Nichols (Manager) and the team of clinicians at CAMHS have since contributed to numerous projects conducted by our group. This year, we conducted an evaluation of the recent relocation of Ballarat CAMHS from co-located to stand alone premises. Anne Watson, Mental Health Promotion Officer at CAMHS, is currently collaborating on a project to investigate rural adolescents’ experiences of providing peer support for mental health problems.

Bendigo Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service

Lead On Ballarat 

Lead On Ballarat has partnered with us to deliver a pilot film-making project to rural adolescents with mental illness. The Lead On agency is providing us with in kind support in the form of free use of studio space and equipment to conduct the program. Their involvement will also ensure that our participants have enhanced opportunities to connect to the youth network in Ballarat via the Ballarat Learning Exchange (BLX) where this program will be held during 2008.

Centacare in Ballarat has also partnered with us to deliver the pilot film-making intervention for rural adolescents with mental illness. Stephen Mills and colleagues are working to identify rural youth with mental illness from within their programs who will benefit most from their participation in the project.

Mary Shone at the Division of General Practice is assisting us in identifying regional GPs in the Ballarat area with experience in the treatment of eating disorder patients. In a project being conducted by Lisa Harvie, RAMH Group member, these GPs will contribute to our understanding of the work that they do to treat eating disorders in a regional context.

Kristy Francis

Kristy is a clinical psychologist with Grampians Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. She was a RAMH Group member from 2005 – 2007. She has published several papers on the attitudes of rural adolescents’ towards seeking help for mental health problems. Her most recent project evaluated the 2005 relocation of the Grampians Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service from co-located to stand alone premises.

Toula Filiadis

Toula is a clinician with a background in child and adolescent mental health and the treatment of eating disorders. She has worked with the group in the past on a study investigating treatment and referral patterns of GPs’ eating disorder patients in the Ballarat region of Victoria. She also contributed to the mentoring component of the Ride.Life Mountainboarding Project for Rural Adolescent Males.

Hester Parr

Hester is a social geographer with an interest in mental health geography, emotional geographies, and medical geography. She acts as an external consultant to members of the Rural Adolescent Mental Health group on matters relating to social geographies of caring.

Adam Zemunic

Adam is the Director of MUNRO Boards. He has worked for many years to build and strengthen the mountainboarding community within Australia and has a strong commitment to the mental health and well-being of young people. He has been a main driver of the Ride.Life Mountainboarding Project for Rural Youth funded by the Windermere Foundation.

  Martin Markus

Martin has a background in psychology, qualifications in Outdoor Education, and current experience in social welfare. He is passionate about environmental issues and has been involved in numerous re-vegetation projects in Ballarat. He made a significant contribution to the environmental education aspects of the mountainboarding program during 2007.

Lesley Speed

Lesley is a lecturer in Film and Media at the University of Ballarat. Her research interests extend into the use of film and video in community contexts. She is a major contributor to the group’s film-making project in conjunction with Lead On and funded by a City of Ballarat Community Development Grant.

Rhonda Wilson

Rhonda is a clinical nurse specialist and lecturer in nursing at the University of New England. She has particular interests in reducing barriers to mental health service utilization for rural adolescents experiencing symptoms of early psychosis. She is working with the group to develop conceptual models of care/pathways to care for rural young people with mental health problems. She is co-author on a recent RAMH Group paper on harnessing social capital in rural communities for youth mental health.

Cate Bearsley-Smith

Cate is a clinical psychologist with the Gippsland Regional Clinical School and senior lecturer with the School of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Psychological Medicine at Monash University, Australia. Her interests include Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for rural adolescents and the evaluation of evidence-based psychological interventions within rural CAMHS. She is also co-author on a recent RAMH Group paper on harnessing social capital in rural communities for youth mental health.

Research Output

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Reviews and commentaries   

Boyd, C.P., Aisbett, D.L., Francis, K., Newnham, K., & Newnham, K. (2006). Issues in rural adolescent mental health in Australia. Rural and Remote Health, 6 (online), no. 501.

Boyd, C.P., Aisbett, D.L., Newnham, K., Francis, K.J., Kelly, M., Sewell, J., Nurse, S., & Dawes, G. (2006). Challenges in providing mental health care to young people in rural communities. The Network: Towards Unity for Health Newsletter, June edition. Available from URL: http://www.the-networktufh.org

Aisbett, D. (2006). Interpretive phenomenological approaches in rural mental health research. Rural Social Work and Community Practice, 11, 52-58.

Boyd, C.P. (2006). Social justice, clinical pragmatism, and the rural practitioner. Rural Social Work & Community Practice, 10, 36-37.

Sewell, J. (2006). Barriers to higher education for rural Australian students. Rural Social Work & Community Practice, 10, 23-27.

Boyd, C.P., & Parr, H. (2008). Social geography and rural mental health research. Rural and Remote Health, 8 (online), no. 804.

Boyd, C.P., Hayes, L., Sewell, J., Caldwell, K., Kemp, E., Harvie, L., Aisbett, D.L., & Nurse, S. (2008). Mental health problems in rural contexts: A broader perspective. Australian Psychologist, 43, 2-6.

Boyd, C.P., Hayes, L., Wilson, R.L., Bearsley-Smith, C. (in press). Harnessing the social capital of rural communities for youth mental health: An asset-based community development framework. Australian Journal of Rural Health.

Original Research

Francis, K., Boyd, C.P., Aisbett, D.L., Newnham, K., & Newnhmam, K. (2006). Rural adolescents’ perceptions of barriers to seeking help for mental health problems. Youth Studies Australia, 25, 42-49.

Kelly, M. & Boyd, C. (2006). Promoting the Psychosocial Functioning of Young Adults through Psychiatric Residential Rehabilitation: A Qualitative Evaluation of the Making a Significant Change (MASC) program. International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation, 10, 139-153.

Aisbett, D.L., Boyd, C.P., Francis, K., Newnham, K., & Newnham, K. (2007). Understanding the barriers to mental health service utilization for adolescents in rural Australia. Rural and Remote Health, 7 (online), no. 624.

Boyd C.P, Francis, K., Aisbett, D.L., Newnham, K., Sewell, J., Dawes, G., & Nurse, S. (2007). Australian rural adolescents’ experiences of accessing psychological help for a mental health problem. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 15, 196-200.

Newnham, K., Boyd, C.P., Newnham, K., Francis, K., & Aisbett, D.L. (under review). Experience of place for adolescents in rural Australia. Manuscript available from the authors.

Boyd, C.P., Kemp, E., Hayes, L., Aisbett, D.L., & Filiadis, T. (under review). Mentors and mountainboarding: The development and delivery of an innovative program for rural adolescent males at-risk of mental health problems. Manuscript available from the authors.

Kemp, E., Boyd, C.P., Aisbett, D., Harvie, L., Caldwell, K., & Markus, M. (under review). Delivery and evaluation of the ‘Ride.Life’ mountainboarding program for rural adolescent males. Manuscript available from the authors.

Francis, K.J., Boyd, C.P., Sewell, J., Nurse, S., & Aisbett, D.L. (under review). Clinician’s perspectives of the relocation of a regional Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service from co-located to stand alone premises. Manuscript available from authors.

Caldwell, K.L., Boyd, C.P., Aisbett, D.L., Morphett, J., Harvie, L., & Sewell, J. (under review). Coping and resilience in Australian farming families affected by drought. Manuscript available from authors.

Boyd, C.P., Newnham, K., Nurse, S., Aisbett, D.L., Currie, M., Clutterbok, T. (in prep). Prevalence of common mental health problems among adolescents in rural Victoria.

Boyd, C.P., Aisbett, D.L., Nurse, S., Hayes, L., Newnham, K., Sewell, J., Caldwell, K. ( in prep). Preferences and intentions of rural adolescents toward seeking help for mental health problems.

Conference Presentations and Seminars

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Boyd, C.P. (2008). Issues in rural adolescent mental health in Australia. Seminar to be presented to the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research, Utrecht, Holland.

Boyd, C.P. (2008). Development of an effective mentoring group that engages rural university students in postgraduate research: The RAMH Group. Paper to be presented at the 2008 London Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference, United Kingdom.

Kemp, E. & Boyd, C.P. (2008). Delivery and evaluation of the ‘Ride.Life” mountainboarding program for rural adolescent males. Colloquium presented to School of Behavioural and Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Ballarat, Australia.

Boyd, C.P. (2007). Issues in rural adolescent mental health in Australia. Invited address to the 2007 Focus of Psychosis Focus, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia.

Boyd, C.P. (2007) Issues in rural adolescent mental health in Australia. Seminar presented to the Department of Geography, University of Dundee, Scotland.

Kemp, E. & Boyd, C.P. (2007). Delivery and evaluation of the ‘Ride.Life” mountainboarding program for rural adolescent males. Paper presented to the Annual University of Ballarat Research Conference, Ballarat, Australia.

Caldwell, K., & Boyd, C.P. (2007). Resilience in farming families affected by drought. Paper presented to the Annual University of Ballarat Research Conference, Ballarat, Australia.

Sewell, J. (2007). The effects of geographical displacement on the psychological well-being of rural University students. Poster presented to the Annual University of Ballarat Research Conference, Ballarat, Australia.

Harvie, L., & Boyd, C.P. (2007). The detection and management of eating disorders in regional Australia from a general practitioners’ perspective. Poster presented to the Annual University of Ballarat Research Conference, Ballarat, Australia.

Aisbett, D.L., & Boyd, C.P. (2006). Understanding the barriers to mental health service utilization for adolescents in rural Australia. Paper presented at the Rural Health – Going for Gold Conference, Ballarat, Australia.

Aisbett, D.L., & Boyd, C.P. (2006). Understanding the barriers to mental health service utilisation for adolescents in rural Australia. Paper presented at the Australian Association for Cognitive and Behavioural Therapy annual conference, Manly, Australia.

Aisbett, D.L., Boyd, C.P., Filiadis, T., & Howard, A. (2006). Treatment of eating disorders by general practitioners in regional Australia. Paper presented at the University of Ballarat Annual Research Conference, Ballarat, Australia.

Aisbett, D.L. (2006). Treatment of eating disorders by GPs in regional Australia. Paper presented at the University Annual Research Conference, Ballarat, Australia.

Dawes, G. (2006). The role of the GP in the treatment of rural adolescent mental health problems. Paper presented at the University Annual Research Conference, Ballarat, Australia.

Filiadis, T., Boyd, C.P., Howard, A., & Aisbett, D.L. (2006). Treatment of eating disorders by general practitioners in regional Australia. Paper presented at the Australian and New Zealand Association of Eating Disorders Conference, Adelaide, Australia.

Newnham, K. (2006). Socioeconomic status as a mediator of the relationship between depression and rurality in Australian adolescents. Paper presented at the University Annual Research Conference, Ballarat, Australia.

Nurse, S. (2006). Barriers to seeking professional help for adolescents with mental health problems in rural Victoria. Paper presented at the University Annual Research Conference, Ballarat, Australia.

Sewell, J. (2006). The psychological well-being of rural university students who study away from home. Poster presented at the University Annual Research Conference, Ballarat, Australia.

Aisbett, D.L, Francis, K., & Boyd, C.P. (2005). Understanding the barriers to mental health service utilisation for adolescents in rural Australia: A qualitative investigation. Paper presented at the University of Ballarat Annual Research Conference, Ballarat, Australia.

Aisbett, D.L, Francis, K., & Boyd, C.P. (2005). Understanding the barriers to mental health service utilisation for adolescents in rural Australia: A qualitative investigation. Paper presented at the University of Ballarat Annual Research Conference, Ballarat, Australia.

Newnham, K., Newnham, K., & Boyd, C.P. (2005). Investigating psychological well-being of adolescents in rural Victoria: A two-part presentation. Paper presented at the University of Ballarat Annual Research Conference, Ballarat, Australia.

Newnham, K., Newnham, K., & Boyd, C.P. (2005). Investigating psychological well-being of adolescents in rural Victoria: A two-part presentation. Paper presented at the University of Ballarat Annual Research Conference, Ballarat, Australia.

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