Vice and Headspace partner in new content series encouraging suffering Australians to seek help
Vice and Headspace have come together to create ‘That Feeling When’ – a content series which they hope will prompt adolescents suffering from poor mental health to seek help.
The year-long partnership will see content released at least once a fortnight through Vice verticals including i-D, Noisey and Broadly.
Jason Trethowan, Headspace CEO, told Mumbrella: “It really is about ensuring that through this partnership young people, family and friends, can actually access information and then be able to prompt conversation for them to then go and seek the help that they need in order to get on top of any concerning issues such as mental health, drug and alcohol issues.
“In terms of the partnership it’s really just increasing the awareness of individuals, being able to help them decide about the appropriateness for them to go and seek help, and often it’s just by hearing, listening or reading key messages that they have heard that resonate with them. Often it takes more than just one conversation to prompt a young person to seek help.
“This is a really important mechanism for us to increase awareness to help that young person get what they need.”
Julian Morgans, Vice Australia editor, said the publication had been covering mental health for some time, but the partnership will mean content is delivered in a more helpful way.
“The message we really want to get out to young people is that help is available, if you are feeling alone, if you are feeling lost, if you are feeling unhappy you don’t have to assume that you are just alone with that,” he said.
“We’ve been writing about mental health for a long time, our editorial slant is to take things that are maybe a little controversial or a little difficult for a polite society to discuss as mental health often seems to be. These are the reasons we have been covering the issue for a long time, it is by nature a very emotional topic so that’s why it works for Vice, but our partnership with Headspace means we can deliver the stories we are telling in a more helpful way.”
Written by various contributors including medical professionals and sufferers of poor mental health, Trethowan said Headspace and Vice want to “help the readership understand the significance of feelings and the significance of what it is like to actually seek help”, and promote Headspace as a safe place for young people to go.
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