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The reasons people are coming to us have changed as the pandemic's changed. Georgie Harman: The impact of COVID-19 has been profound and still is, to be honest. What was the impact of COVID-19 on the broader mental health of the community? digitisation) and the emergence of new behaviours and stressors. Shayne Elliott: In our line of business and work, two things we saw broadly as a result of COVID-19 were acceleration of pre-existing trends (i.e. We help people to equip themselves and know where to get support if they need it. We are in schools, early learning services, workplaces, communities and sporting clubs. We've got a major national initiative which is Commonwealth funded called Be You, that's in about –two thirds of all schools around Australia and about a third of all early learning services. We also do policy advocacy and have workplace mental health programs. We have a very early intervention service called New Access, which uses coaches – it's about lower intensity coaching, which is cognitive behavioural therapy based.
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For example, we have a service that works with people in the community after they've attempted suicide. But we also run a bunch of other services that people may not realise. We have a 24-hour support service, which is predominately funded by donations from companies such as ANZ, philanthropy and the community. It's still a core part of our work however we've moved from just simply raising awareness to behaviour change how we educate people, so they make good choices about their mental health and recovery. Most people know us for our work tackling stigma and discrimination, but we've moved far past that. In some cases, they have gotten better and want to give back - they want to connect with our community and become an ambassador or a speaker. Millions of Australian’s come to us every year, whether they are well and want to stay that way or they're acutely unwell or in suicidal distress and are looking for support to recover. Georgie Harman: We are Australia's most well known and most visited mental health organisation, with a sharp focus on the most common mental health conditions in Australia depression and anxiety. Georgie could you give a bit of background into the organisation? Shayne Elliott: Beyond Blue is a very well-known organisation, but I doubt people truly understand the scope and exactly what Beyond Blue does.