Our CEO, Rose, receives AM for her contribution to Community Mental Health & Youth

 

We are incredibly proud to announce that our CEO, Rose Cuff, has been awarded the Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for their significant service to community mental health and youth. This prestigious honour is a testament to Rose’s dedication and unwavering commitment for more than 30 years to improving the lives of young people and their families impacted by mental health challenges.  In her own words, Rose shares a deep reflection on the importance of this recognition and the ongoing work ahead. Here, Rose highlights the strength and resilience of young carers, and the role of our organisation, Satellite, in creating spaces where they are seen, heard, and empowered.

“I am deeply honoured and humbled to receive the Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to community mental health and youth.

I receive it on the Country on which I live, work and create, the unceded lands of the Wurrundjeri Woiwurrung peoples and acknowledge them as the Traditional Custodians and their enduring connection to Country. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present and commit Satellite’s support to Treaty Victoria.

An image of Rose Cuff, CEO of Satellite Foundation

This award is for the hundreds of thousands of children, young people, their families and communities who are living with family mental health challenges across this country. The parents, siblings, carers, and kin who experience a mental health challenge or a mental illness and means the young person in their family system can take on significant caring roles and responsibilities.

I honour and recognise your resilience, your struggles, your potential and your strengths. This award is for all of you – the extraordinary young people I’ve met and walked alongside for more than 30 years, as my teachers and guides. This is for their families and supporters. And this is for the people working with me, now and those in the past, who share my still undiminished passion for bringing about change for the better.

I hope this award can contribute to a deeper awareness and understanding in the community about mental health challenges in families and the experiences of young people taking on significant caring roles and responsibilities. I hope this awareness brings with it compassion, and an absence of judgement.   Because there is so much more to do together. More done to address discrimination and more accurate data about how many children and young people are living with family mental health challenges.

Satellite is a caring community-based organisation, grounded in principles of peer connection, creative expression and wellbeing. We invite young people to come as they are, to go gently, to share stories and to believe in themselves. Satellite was founded with a fierce determination to make sure these young people are seen, to have their voices amplified and stories heard – not only stories of struggle and feeling alone, but also to offer places where they could join the dots and make sense of their experiences and celebrate their strengths and resilience. Ask the unaskeable. Have brave conversations. Have fun. Make friends. Make art.

Because talking about mental health and mental illness is still one of the hardest things for anyone to do, at any age.

I honour all of you and thank you for the privilege of walking this walk, and at times running!, alongside you.”

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