OUR STORY
How we came to be our Healthy Clarence
Since March 2016, an extraordinary coordinated community, health, education and community services effort has been in place in the Clarence Valley, to address a higher than state average rate of suicide in the Grafton/Yamba/Maclean region since early 2015.
In response, a four-phase process was implemented: community meetings to discuss the issue; community interviews to identify risk and protective factors and existing mental health and well-being strategies; workshops to commence development of a local action plan, and the formation of the Our Healthy Clarence Steering Committee to lead the development and implementation of the 2016–2018 strategy for improving mental health and well-being in the Clarence Valley.
The Plan has come from the grassroots and belongs to everybody in the community. No one organisation has jurisdiction over it.
Our Healthy Clarence is a unique model that brings community and organisations together constructively and sustainably to improve the mental health and overall well-being of the Clarence Valley community.
We would like to acknowledge the Bundjalung, Gumbaynggirr and Yaegl nations who are the traditional Custodians of the lands within the Clarence Valley, and pay respect to Elders both past, present and emerging. We would also like to acknowledge those with lived experience of mental health, their families and their carer’s.