sHedway holding workshops during Heritage and Bullock Festival

Mental health workshops aimed specifically at the wool industry and extending to the broader midlands community will be held in conjunction with the Heritage and Bullock Festival Sports Shear Competition next weekend.

On the back of strong support when the SHedway team visited for CampbellTown Show In May, its mental health workers will be on the ground at Oatlands on August 8 and will then tour the shearing sheds of Tasmania from August 9 to 14, followed by it’s first ever sHedway safeTALK workshop outside New South Wales, to be held back in Oatlands on August 15.

Founder Carol Mudford said that Rural Alive and Well will also be attending and that the workshop is for anyone connected to shearing and the sheep industry, from shearing shed staff and wool growers to farm staff, wool processing workers, wool brokers and retail, and all their families. 

“It is not group therapy, it is a workshop for everyone in the community to learn how to recognise and respond to someone else who might be thinking about suicide, and how to connect them to expert support,” she said.

“We’re also aiming to train local Tasmanians to be our sHedway champions into the future - these are volunteers from the shearing industry who hold stalls and train to run workshops for us across Australia.

SHedway was born out of the tragedy of three shearers being lost through suicide in regional NSW where Carol was shearing full-time.

Carol, also a qualified nurse, started reaching out to people in the shearing sheds with the idea that 'someone should do something', and with overwhelming support she kicked off sHedway as a simple Facebook page in December 2023.

From there, it’s grown into a national team of sHedway champions who have become the voice for mental health in the shearing industry.

“At the recent Campbell Town Show we had heaps of requests to come back and run more workshops, so we decided to come back for the Oatlands Sports Shear,” she said.

SHedway’s workshop will be in the Oatlands Community Hall on Saturday, August 15 10am-3pm. The workshop is free and smoko and lunch provided

Bookings are essential by emailing carol@shedway.org.au or text Carol on 0456 960 695.

The 4-hour workshop is for everyone over 15yo to learn about suicide awareness:

- how to tell when someone else might be struggling or thinking about suicide

- how to talk to them about it

- and how to link them to expert support (such as Lifeline or 000 in crisis)

The workshop is supported by AgriFutures Australia and the Westpac bursary from the National Rural Women's Award.