Identification of personal and community resilience that enhance psychological wellness: A Stanthorpe study

The aim of this project is to work collaboratively with key stakeholders from a rural community (Stanthorpe in South East Queensland) to develop, implement, and evaluate a model that enhances psychological wellness in rural people and communities.

There are significant mental health problems in rural and remote Australia. Researchers in Australia are only just beginning to investigate mental health, and prevention is identified as a primary focus.

A new innovative approach to mental health prevention is identifying and using characteristics that will enhance individual and community psychological wellness.

Resilience has been identified as one of those characteristics.

This project will be conducted over a three-year period from 2004 to 2007.

Funding:  Cash from ARC Linkage Grant AUD$86 000, Combined Rural Traders AUD$30 000 (cash),  Department Primary Industries and Fisheries AUD$15 000 (cash), Lifeline Darling Downs and Southwest Qld AUD$15 120 (in-kind), Toowoomba Health Service District AUD$52 920 (in-kind). 

Project Team:   Prof Desley Hegney (USQ/UQ), Prof Helen Ross (UQ), Assoc Prof Janelle Allison (UQ), Assoc Prof Peter Baker (UQ), Dr Cath Rogers-Clark (USQ), Dr Elizabeth Buikstra (USQ), Dr Christine King (UQ), Maria O'Keefe (Lifeline Darling Downs).