A key focus for the gender and mental health and wellbeing team is to establish some structures to help address neglect of gendered transformative approaches to mental health that has resulted in a disproportionate burden of mental health conditions and experiences among women.
APAC Conference on Women’s Mental Health
WHISE was very happy to be invited to present at the Inaugural APWMH Conference 2023, held in Melbourne.
The need for a sex and gendered approach in improving mental wellbeing is crucial. Recognising and understanding the complex intersections of gender, discrimination, and biology can inform effective prevention strategies and interventions to promote mental wellness for everyone.
WHISE presented information specific to menopause & gendered violence and their links to mental wellbeing and contributed to important discussions and initiatives focused on improving mental health outcomes and addressing the unique challenges faced by women due to these societal and biological factors.
A key focus for the gender and mental health and wellbeing team is to establish some structures to help address neglect of gendered transformative approaches to mental health that has resulted in a disproportionate burden of mental health conditions and experiences among women.
Size inclusive practice forum
An action to promote awareness of size-inclusive practice and bodily autonomy for positive mental and physical wellbeing was carried out through a workshop delivered in December 2023.
The workshop focused on the bidirectional relationship between biological sex, gender, body image, and mental wellbeing and the recording has been viewed over 400 times.
Many participants felt confident in applying a gender lens at work and very confident in applying knowledge of a gendered approach to improving mental health. Three months later, 60% of respondents reported applying their learnings to their roles, including developing inclusive nutrition programs and promoting non-judgmental support for individuals with weight-related issues. Feedback highlighted increased awareness of language use and an enhanced ability to discuss sensitive topics effectively, with 60% of participants noting that the webinar impacted their work or personal life.
Biological sex, gender and mental health for frontline workers
A goal of this portfolio was to apply a gender lens to mental health and wellbeing across sectors beyond mental health. This culminated in a learning forum delivered on July 18, 2023, in partnership with the HER Centre Australia.
This forum, attended by 46 frontline professionals, aimed to translate and broker existing evidence on the sex and gendered determinants of mental wellbeing. Out of 64 registrants, 33 attended, with 34 completing a pre-training survey and 21 completing a post-training survey. The evaluation report revealed a significant increase in confidence among participants to apply their knowledge of gendered approaches to mental health.
Additionally, two-thirds of respondents endorsed the second-highest rating for confidence in applying knowledge of biological sex and gender determinants of women’s mental health - an impressive outcome, as increasing confidence post-learning forums can be challenging.
Connecting the Dots webinar
The Gender and Mental Wellbeing portfolio collaborated with the Promoting Respect and Equity Together (PRET) Partnership to deliver a learning forum to increase awareness of family violence, trauma, mental health challenges, mental ill-health, and suicidality, targeting healthcare providers and educators. Participants noted improvement in understanding how gender-based violence prevention initiatives benefit mental health and wellbeing and felt more confident in applying a gendered approach to improve mental health and wellbeing.
Social Planners' Forums and Network
Following the feedback from the gender and mental health literacy pilot, it was clear that if we wanted to do work at the systems level, we needed to pitch the work accordingly. We worked with the Department of Health to coordinate a social planners forum, which explored what gender transformative mental health promotion could look like.
We first ran two forums on gender and mental wellbeing for health planners, which led to significant progress in participants' confidence in identifying opportunities for gender-transformative mental health activities within a local government context. Additionally, confidence in utilising existing legislation, frameworks, and case studies for gender-transformative mental health promotion improved markedly.
The Social Planners’ Gender and Mental Wellbeing Network was formed following extensive consultations and network meetings. This network provides opportunities for sharing work, successes, challenges, reflections and collective action to promote mental wellbeing and to enable WHISE to provide support to social planners as the seek to embed a gender and mental wellbeing lens overall health priority areas of their municipal health and wellbeing plans.
The objectives of the network are:
- To support the translation of theory to gender transformative practice. This network will look to the emerging evidence base, share ideas, and look for collective learning, on how to translate theory into effective and appropriate strength-based action at the practitioner level.
- To share and capture case studies on the planning, implementation or evaluation of programs designed to shape initiatives that co-benefit mental well-being and gender equality.
- To seek to engage and influence community infrastructure to support an intersectional lens overall health priority area, for improved mental wellbeing, including population health catchment and any community health promotion stakeholder in the region.