Throwback Reflections from TheMHS “Finding the Common Threads“ forum 2025
4 July 2025
Hannah, our Lead Facilitator, recently attended TheMHS Forum alongside Tompson, Satellite’s Facilitator. Today, we’re excited to share some of Hannah’s reflections and experiences from her very first conference.
She also curated a beautiful collage featuring a variety of exhibitor items collected from the market stalls over the two-day event.
Finding the Common Threads
“My first ever conference! What a journey, literally. It was my first time travelling without family on a plane and I can officially say that airports are scary but not as scary as my brain told me.
When I was asked to present at the TheMHS Forum my excitement shot through the roof, especially when I heard there was a youth focus. I’ve been in youth peer work for 4 years now and have loved every moment and opportunity to engage with young people and share my own story. It has encompassed the beginning of adulthood for me.
Unfortunately, youth peer work has an expiration date, alas, we cannot all be young forever. But that means opening up my world to all the other amazing ways to work and support mental health and young people. The two days of sharing and learning at this Forum were a flurry of the limitless ways to be a supporter in this space. Led by an astounding Youth Panel, there were amazing conversations around connection, collaboration and creation of systems that work! By far my highlight was the youth voices in the room. I will always admire the experience that those who’ve built our current support system have, but hearing from the people who we want to support most made it feel real.
The discussion of digital mental health played a big part in these conversations. We discovered the most crucial part of youth mental health online is digital literacy. When we know what is good for us and what isn’t, we can navigate in safer ways. We must embrace the digital era because it’s not going away anytime soon! It’s not about banning it or trying to take it away but holding the big bosses of the digital world accountable for the safety of future generations.
A massive take away from it all was that young people know what we want! When young people were asked what they needed in different spaces to support their mental health, their suggestions made a difference.
Our presentation narrowed in on this through Satellite’s co-creation framework. We know that young people are unique and asking one won’t satisfy all. That’s the beauty of youth! This means we need different ways to connect and create together. Sometimes it’s as simple as an idea. A young person telling us ‘I want to do more photography’ and us bringing that to life in a photography focused workshop. It can be more involved where the young people design their ideal workshop and are involved in the process of what a whole day looks like. It can be what Tommy and I did at this Forum, using our experience in a presentation to bring awareness to the importance of youth voices. There is no ‘correct’ way to collaborate, but meaningful collaboration is something that will make an incredible difference.
Collaboration can be big too! It’s what we all want. For decades it has been that unreachable dream; a system that works together toward a shared goal. We all want it but we don’t know how to get to it. My reflection at the end of this forum was that it needs to be a bit of everything. We need continuous research and knowledge of how our brains work and change. We need clinical support where there’s specialised care. We need peer work because when someone gets you, you feel heard. There is no one solution to it all. Humans like to be complex and dynamic. A stagnant and linear system doesn’t suit us.
How we work together is an ongoing project that will likely surpass my generation and many more to come. But the more we try to separate health into mental or physical, older or younger, male or female, etc. The more we lose touch with the human experience.
I am already looking ahead to TheMHS Conference 2025: Envisioning 2050 and hoping that the young voices we heard in this forum are amplified in that space. Young people aren’t silos. We grow up. We are the future. If you want to envision what 2050 will look like – ask me. Ask the other 20-year-olds who will be in their 40s. We want a system that communicates and works together just like everyone who was present in these two days of conversation.
Please don’t leave us out of the next conversation. ”
