it really needs to I mean we see it in mental health with the peer support and how important
that it is for people to be able to feel that straight away common ground
and first-hand knowledge and experience. I think it's like it's just
you're a plate like it's just there's nothing that can be can replicate that. It's such a
unique experience to have been in the care system and I think you know people can have empathy and
and understanding towards it but for you to know that that's your peer support actually knows and
understands and and has gone through the same things is really comforting and is going to be
really comforting and help help these kids heaps. So yeah I think it's really good and I think it's
awesome that they have some positive role models that have been out of the care system because all
over the news you hear about you know the homelessness and the drug addiction and the
this and the crimes and you and the suicide rate as well you hear about all this stuff
you don't really hear about the good stuff and so you kind of when I was leaving care thought oh
you know you're doomed that's that's the road you're destined to take because this is where
you've come from. So it's really awesome if you guys can provide a space where yeah that's not
the only alternative and young people can see that they can make a really good life for themselves.
Community members as mentors could really try and give out that little bit of a nudge.
Need to be gentle, need to be done properly but I think there's a time and space for that.
And I look at where I am today and I only got here because of the people around me like
I've got support from friends, a little bit of family but I also had mentors throughout that.
I had a mentor from White Lion who really encouraged me to try different foods
and just kind of created that experimented with new things taking me out to different
restaurants and what it does is create this new experience for you that then you go oh that
was actually real good I might try something else. And it builds it all helps you build to
become a better person but I would really encourage you or anyone else to try and
within this sector to try and have young people along that journey walk it with you.
Have that lived experience the whole way. One, hold you accountable but two,
make it more relatable to the audience that you're trying to tailor it to.
I found it hard to talk to therapists that we're reading out of a textbook so if you've got
background experience I feel like you're going to have more of a level with someone that is going
through that time. I love it when you're not reading out of a textbook because there's a place
for lived experience which is what we yes there is young people there is experience to be coaches.
Having that ability to have a coach in their corner that's got a lived experience of being in
care and they may have all sorts of different things but you know just that hour a week or
that hour a month to just coach that young person from a perspective of being in care do you think
that's something that you would have gravitated towards or do you what's your thoughts on that?
I think I would have really really loved that. I would have loved to see what it was like on
the other end because the things I've done differently or the things I might have picked
up faster and learned lessons earlier on would have been amazing because I had I had I guess
someone who had been in the same situation or a similar scenario that could offer insight or
light into into what you know the end of it looks like and I think that would be really really
important for young people I mean even to even to you know there's so many things you can
you can you can teach and show and and educate on even you know from from being in care I know
that it's very very easy to get down on yourself and very very easy to become a no person someone
who says no all the time to everything no I don't want that no I don't want I don't want to go to
school I don't want I don't want help I don't want this and you know even opening up yourself to
being a yes person and saying yes to all the opportunities and you know waking up every
morning saying yes is so important so having that peer and that person to help support you would
I think would change lives I really really do.