Hilary Bouma is a wise, and wonderful woman who has many roles and continues to inspire her friends, family and community.

A passionate environmental educator, dedicated to inspiring and engaging young people to become stewards of the coast through her role as Coordinator of a year 9 environmental education program for the past 10 years. Her ability to connect people of all ages with nature’s wonders has made her a beloved educator for programs spanning from ages 4 to 94.

Aside from her professional life, Hilary is also a devoted family caregiver, having navigated the life-threatening illness of one of her sons with Severe Aplastic Anaemia, Bone Marrow Transplant and secondary cancer. Despite the many complications and setbacks, Hilary has been a rock of support, love, encouragement, and positivity to her husband and sons, while also managing the family home and care for other aging family members.

With her natural ability as a born caregiver, Hilary has balanced these various responsibilities with grace and tenacity. It is our absolute pleasure to ponder with her.

Who is the most inspiring human you have met this year?

My son continues to inspire me. He overcomes the challenges of cancer and vision impairment every day and has blossomed into a beautiful young man who challenges himself more, cares for others and the environment.

Any exciting plans for the new year?

Changes in direction, as I have semi-retired from paid work for a while. Time to spend time caring for the elderly and ill family. Time to care for myself by doing yoga, eating well, pursuing artistic creations that have been in limbo for many years, and getting back into the sea for swims. And whatever other exciting opportunities arise.

Family and friendship are…

Being there: to listen and have a chat; to do practical giving of time and things people need; sharing troubles and joys; understanding we are all the same but different; to encourage hope and positivity in others.

Talk to us about your roles in life.

I can’t separate the importance of my occupation and my family. So my role is entwined in both.

Workwise – Coordinator of a year 9 environmental education program for 10 years. It’s designed to engage and encourage young people to care for our coast to create future stewards. 

I aim to encourage and inspire people to care for nature by showing and sharing nature’s wonders and how people can make positive practical steps to protect and conserve our environment. I work with people aged 4 to 94 in other education programs and just love connecting people with nature’s wonders.

Familywise – to have a loving family home and deal with life’s challenges together. One of my sons had a life-threatening illness in 2014 called Severe Aplastic Anaemia. Diagnosis and treatment, and recovery were (and are) like running marathons for the child you love. My son had many complications and setbacks and nearly died several times during treatment. He had a Bone Marrow Transplant and then complications of secondary cancer (Lymphoma). He lost his spleen and eyesight and is now living with a vision impairment. 

He is well now and living an amazing life despite his impairments. During all this and today, my beautiful husband and other son have struggled and been supportive in their own way. So it’s a huge journey for all of us. My roles have been to support others with love, encouragement, faith, hope and positivity (be a rock); coordinate medical appointments; case manage my son’s schooling, health and recovery; run a family home; look after ageing and ill other family members, look after my health and welfare, and earn some money. So basically, I think I’m a born carer, just like my mother!

Of course, they are just two roles in my life. I do plenty more, haha.

What did you love about your roles?

Seeing the gorgeous bright eyes of children (and adults) who connect with nature. Like finding a decorator crab amongst the seaweed in a rockpool, then touching and feeling the animal with very gentle fingers (emphasising care and respect for living things), being amazed that the seaweed is growing on the crab, wondering how it all works, how the animal eats and survives in the pools and waves, how wonderous they are, and yearning to find out how to care and protect them.

Or learning together about the traditional owners’ ways of life and an understanding of the environment. All the parts of nature make a whole and have a story. Even the shapes of the Moonah tree, so spooky and wildly twisted and beautiful, have a dreamtime story about them. 

Learning this wonderous spiritual part of nature is also fantastic. Sharing the love of nature is the best! And I love the coast the most!

What I love about my family role:

What happens in a family is not always what you are expecting. Life throws many curve balls. And I love the love and resilience we all have shared. A family that travels together hangs together. We have been on many adventures to remote places and seen and experienced the wonders of nature together. We all love nature in some way and know that it is healing. We’ve had some pretty rough times but still love each other, with all our faults and bad experiences, and know we can rely on each other no matter what happens. 

Why was the work and service you provided so important to you? 

The two main parts of my work and service in life, being an environmental educator, and a carer mum, are important because of the connection to love and nature. The world we live in is so magical and magnificent; I want to learn more and immerse myself in the love and spirit of nature for our family benefit and the environment. 

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Inspiring Australians Making Change for Mental Health

Four incredible winners have been announced at UNSW Sydney for the 2022 Australian Mental Health Prize, which seeks to recognise the important and ground-breaking work many Australians do for mental health. Established in 2016, the Prize expanded to four categories: Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, Lived Experience; Professional; and Community Hero. 

The Prize is awarded annually to Australians who have made outstanding contributions to the promotion of mental health or the prevention or treatment of mental illness – in areas such as advocacy, research or service provision. This year the awards were presented by the Hon. Emma McBride MP, Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention

Category: Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander – to recognise and celebrate outstanding Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander mental health leadership at a national or community level.

Donna Stanley, a proud Gunggari Umby (woman), is a vastly experienced leader in Aboriginal mental health and well-being and a deeply compassionate, ethical and skilled clinician. Donna’s contributions to mental health recovery have been personal. Her brother died from suicide almost 30 years ago, and she has since dedicated her life to supporting others. She has been a tireless advocate for the mental health needs of her people, applying her knowledge of how Aboriginal communities’ social structures influence the mental health of individuals.

She is regularly called upon to interpret issues of grief, loss and trauma common among Aboriginal people arriving at the hospital in acute distress. Her work includes coordinating the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health First Aid Program and working with the NSW Mental Health Commission. In 2018-19 she provided valuable leadership throughout a performance audit into mental health services for Aboriginal people in NSW. Donna is currently the acting Executive Director of Aboriginal Health and Well-being for Western NSW Local Health District. She assisted in leading a team in Western NSW LHD with a culturally and clinically safe model of care for Aboriginal people and communities during the Delta outbreak in 2021.

Category: Lived experience – to recognise and celebrate outstanding mental health leadership by someone with lived experience of mental health, either personally or as a supporter, at a national level. 

Ian Thorpe AM has been a prominent advocate for mental health awareness, prevention, stigma reduction and help-seeking since publicly speaking about his lived experience in 2014. He has drawn on his own experience of anxiety and depression to connect with and reassure others that they are not alone and to encourage and inspire them to seek support.

As one of Australia’s most famous Olympians, his work has been especially impactful in reducing stigma and normalising conversations about mental health. Ian has also been instrumental in creating the mental health fundraising initiative Laps for Life, leading its publicity since 2019. Laps for Life is a national swimming challenge event designed to support the participants’ mental health and well-being while raising funds to prevent youth suicide. Since its inception, over 20,000 people across Australia have participated, and the event has raised over $5 million for youth mental health support services. 

Category: Professional – to recognise and celebrate outstanding mental health leadership in the clinical, academic or professional sectors at a national level. 

Alan Woodward has a long and distinguished career in suicide prevention and mental health, with a specific interest in evaluation and quality improvement, particularly in crisis services. He has contributed to service development, innovation, and policy advocacy for many years, most recently speaking at the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran suicide. He is well-known and respected in the sector for his contribution.

Much of the last 20 years have been spent working with Lifeline Australia, where he led many organisational reforms, including building a strong evaluation function to achieve better outcomes for individuals and communities. This included establishing and leading the Lifeline Research Foundation from 2011 to 2018. His career has spanned executive roles in the public sector and private consulting work, specialising in human services, community engagement, performance measurement, continuous improvement, and evaluation. Alan is currently a part-time National Mental Health Commissioner.

Category: Community hero – to recognise and celebrate outstanding mental health leadership at a State or community level. Gary Thorpe OAM. 

After becoming aware of the impact of social isolation, depression and dementia on the elderly, Gary Thorpe OAM created Silver Memories, a 24-hour-a-day nostalgia broadcast service based on the principles of Reminiscence Therapy. The service broadcasts age-appropriate music (presently 1930s to 1970s) and screens thousands of beautiful images to engage people in aged care, particularly those with dementia.

The service has been operating for 15 years as a not-for-profit service. It is now broadcast via satellite to almost 200 aged care homes across Queensland, New South Wales, ACT, Victoria and South Australia. Silver Memories does not receive operational funding from any level of government and is supported by subscriptions, donations and philanthropic funds. Through Silver Memories, Gary has raised awareness of the need to provide age-appropriate entertainment for people with dementia in aged care. 

Co-chair and past winner of the Prize, Professor Allan Fels AO, said this year’s winners reflect Australia’s current mental health priorities. “In particular, we have seen higher rates of mental illness during COVID, especially in youth, Indigenous and LGBTIQ+ communities; higher rates of suicidal attempts; greater isolation of older people, particularly in nursing homes; and pervasive mental health needs of our veterans, which are currently being examined by the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran suicide. I applaud this year’s winners for their deeply challenging work in these critical areas.”

Mental illnesses are common and highly disabling. In any one year, one in five adult Australians and one in seven children aged 4 to 17 will experience some form of mental illness. One in three Australians will have a mental illness in their lifetime. 

• Mental illness severely impacts a person’s capacity to work, earn a living and maintain close relationships. 
• A quarter of Australians aged 16-24 are experiencing a mental illness at any given time. Many people who live with mental illness first experience symptoms during adolescence.
• Suicide rates are unacceptably high, with more than 3000 Australians taking their own life each year. 
• Men are at the greatest risk of suicide but least likely to seek help. 
• In one year, around one million Australian adults have depression, and over two million have anxiety. Depression has the third highest burden of all diseases in Australia. 
• Indigenous Australians experience much higher rates of psychological distress than the general population and lower access to mental health services.
• LGBTIQA+ people experience very high rates of depression and psychological distress and are the most at-risk group in Australia for suicide.
• Women are more likely to experience depression and anxiety during pregnancy and the year following birth.

For more information, visit www.australianmentalhealthprize.org.au

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