New evaluation projects get off the ground

Image Description: Sophie Barker, Prof Nicola Reavley, Nina Logan, Dr Lakshmi Neelakantan, Rebecca Morecroft, Bernard Galballly standing outside the Live4Life Woodend office.

It was great to have Prof Nicola Reavley, Dr Lakshmi Neelakantan and Nina Logan from The University of Melbourne's Centre for Mental Health come and visit us in Woodend recently.

We are thrilled to be working with this highly experienced research team in the coming months on two core evaluation projects of the Live4Life program and its impact.

Funded by the ALIVE National Centre for Mental Health Research Translation, the first project is a multi-community, multi-year evaluation. It will be looking into whether Live4Life protects and promotes mental health and wellbeing in young people. This project presents a fantastic opportunity for communities to learn more about their young people and the potential benefits of the program. 

Due to the research project’s design, the communities of Ballarat, Bass Coast, Baw Baw, Central Goldfields, Hepburn, Moira and South Gippsland have been invited to participate. After many, many months of planning, we are excited to announce that formal recruitment of schools in these communities is now finally underway, with activities to commence in 2024. A big thank you to those community members and Crew alumni who have kindly donated their time and expertise to the Project Reference Group so far. This will really help shape the project and ensure it is an inclusive and worthwhile experience for all.  Head here for more information. 

The second project ‘Catching Up With The Crew’ has been funded by the The Jack Brockhoff Foundation. It will be delving into the impact that Live4Life Crew participation has on the lives of young people as they transition into further education, employment and training. We have heard anecdotally just how valuable and formative the Crew experience can be for many of our Live4Life young people. This project will help us to properly explore what this impact looks like for young people in the longer term, through interviews and personal stories. We are currently recruiting Crew alumni from the communities of Benalla, Glenelg and Macedon Ranges, who are 18+years and have finished school. If you or anyone you know fits this brief and might be interested in telling their story, head here for more information about how you could be involved! 

Independent evaluations as well as internal monitoring activities are vital to Live4Life, producing up-to-date evidence around which the model is shaped, and building a strong foundation upon which to advocate for the value of whole-of-community prevention strategies in youth mental health. We are really looking forward to working together on these invaluable pieces of research.