Creating meaningful connections with struggling students

Clients: The University of Melbourne, Counselling and Psychological Services

Impact: Equipping staff with a practical understanding of mental health

Through a series of training videos, staff and student leaders are made aware of warning signs of poor mental health and given strategies  to support students. Narrative-centred but grounded in research, these scripts combine the strengths of the Learning Environments team and mental health professionals.

The team were great to work with; they spent time clarifying and understanding our needs. The working relationship was professional, productive and successful and the end product was excellent. We would highly recommend working with this team.

— Bridget Moller (Counselling and Psychological Services)

Process: Mental health professionals meet award-winning screenwriters

To ensure this project was a success, authenticity and expert knowledge needed to go firmly hand in hand.

When Learning Environments were approached to create a series of videos embedded in a mental health training program for staff, we immediately recognised the importance of grounding the project in the research and academic understanding of the Counselling and Psychological Services (CAPS) team. Through an interview style consultation, we gained a comprehensive understanding of the mental health conditions we had been tasked with portraying.

The transformation of clinical knowledge into an authentic onscreen experience is a challenging task. In order to not only reach this benchmark but clear it with a significant margin, we sought out acclaimed feature-film writers and directors to bring their level of production excellence to education. CAPS team members were then able to collaborate with us to review and adjust the narrative-centred draft script. Following a meticulous audition process, the selected actors rehearsed with the final script. An opportunity to receive further feedback from our clients, the rehearsal process refocused directorial intent and finessed the actor’s performances to get the best results on the day of the shoot

By identifying and centring the strengths of both teams in our collaboration, we created an engaging training resource that respectfully and accurately represents the mental health states being addressed and offers quality training to University staff in supporting their students.