The Resilience coaching project has commenced at Lithgow Information Neighbourhood Centre (LINC) following $50,000 in funding through NBMPHN Wentworth Healthcare Well-being grants to support farming communities.
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The project will be delivered across the LGA under LINC with the Resilience Centre working close by for a period of three years to look at data, implement strategies and strengthen the community.
Clinical psychologist, Resilience Centre and Resilience Doughnut director Lyn Worsley has come in to train the first 10 people in how to use a Resilience Doughnut model.
"What's involved in the doughnut is teaching people about the model, how to apply it to themselves and then when using it as a group find where strengths are and combining them to thrive," she said.
She said the key to the model was to help people connect and build their resilience.
"These people trained from schools, private practice and service providers will be able to start teaching the Resilience Doughnut in their context and find how to build resilience in children and develop that," she said.
Ms Worsley said it took three days to coach someone in full and the plan was to coach another 10 people in November and keep growing.
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"What we're hoping to do which is pretty exciting, is to have enough people trained out in Lithgow to have a hub. LINC is wanting to become a hub which would be like a satellite Resilience Centre," she said.
She said the satellite centre would be an opportunity to have people trained, run programs, collect data and see if the programs in place are making a difference to mental health.
"From our perspective we need to have people who are in the context of which it needs to be delivered, it's never good to run a program run by someone who is not part of the community," she said.
"It's really wonderful and important that we have LINC who have got access to a number of different areas to be able to implement the doughnut because they understand what it's like living in those areas."
Ms Worsley said people should get involved in the Resilience Doughnut because it was a fun and uplifting program and looked at people with a resilience lense rather than a trauma lense.
"It's research based and evidence based, it's really based on people who have survived and thrived despite the fact that they've gone through hard difficulties," she said.
LINC Community Hub manager Leanne Walding said it was an important project for the LGA as a community working from the grass roots up.
"We need to do this if we want to strengthen our own community," she said.
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