Mental health support can be difficult to access in rural and regional Australia. Robbie Sefton reflects on the families sharing their stories, the services helping young people and a scholarship designed to build the regional mental health workforce of the future.
28 July 2026
Insight from: Robbie Sefton
It’s hard to watch Jessica Walker’s family speak about their beautiful daughter and sister, reliving the awful day when Jessica didn’t come home and their whole world shattered. Their pain is still raw and you can feel that in every word this courageous family shares. What you also come to appreciate through the video the family so generously made, is the enormous number of Australian families living the Walker’s nightmare, and the terrible toll the mental health crisis is taking on our regions.
Twenty years after Jessica took her own life, rural and regional mental health initiative Hand to the Land was established in her honour, partnering with the Country Education Foundation of Australia (CEF), which supports young people in the regions seeking further education and training. The initiative is raising funds for the Jessica Walker Memorial Scholarship program, supporting CEF students studying degrees such as psychology, nursing, social work and counselling.
Living in the regions, it’s always gratifying to see this focus on mental health issues, which for too long we, as a community, have struggled to talk about, leaving many suffering from deteriorating mental health to deal with it alone, feeling unable to reach out for help. Unfortunately, too, even those who do look for support can find it hard to access due to limited resources and expertise in rural and regional areas.
I have the privilege of being on the board of headspace, a Commonwealth government-supported mental health support service for young people and their families. It’s given me a new perspective on the challenges faced by young people struggling with these health issues, and those who support them. In the time I’ve been involved I’ve seen first-hand just how critically-important services like headspace are, and how many young people reach out every day for assistance. And I’m proud of the fact headspace has such a presence in our rural, regional and remote regions.
Of course there’s more to do, and more that can be done, and services like headspace and initiatives like Hand to the Land will continue to raise awareness of not only the issue itself, but the need for more investment in rural and regional support services. And, investment in the healthcare professionals the regions need to sustain these services, which is such a great outcome of the Jessica Walker Memorial scholarships.
On the positive side, I feel awareness is growing within communities, and the stigma that has persisted around mental health challenges is gradually subsiding. That, in a large part, is thanks to the courage and determination of families like the Walkers, and farmers like George Henderson, whose story was highlighted recently by Hand to the Land. George spoke about the agony of his mental health struggles, and the enormous challenges related to firstly, deciding to reach out for help, and secondly, finding that help when you’re so far away from metropolitan centres.
While we can’t all provide the professional assistance so desperately needed in country communities, we can all help in our own way. It could be as simple as having a cuppa with a friend who’s struggling, or even taking part in training like a mental health first aid course, which are becoming increasingly available in rural and regional areas. Aside from funding and resources, knowledge and compassion can go a long way to helping turn around the shocking suicide rates in the bush. It may seem a simple thing, but a reassuring hand on a shoulder and an ‘are you okay?’ could be the catalyst for changing someone’s life.
