We rewind a decade to when Lau­ra was first intro­duced to remote health, tak­ing on a nurs­ing role in a men­tal health unit in Ade­laide sup­port­ing patients flown in from remote com­mu­ni­ties. From Leeds to learn­ing about the Aus­tralian bush, Lau­ra describes her tran­si­tion as ​“quite the cul­ture shock”.

Lau­ra set her focus on Indige­nous health and pro­vid­ing cul­tur­al­ly appro­pri­ate care, com­plet­ing her post-grad­u­ate study of remote health in Alice Springs.

She has since spent time in the Kim­ber­ley and on the Cape, to bet­ter under­stand the needs and ways to sup­port diverse Indige­nous pop­u­la­tions across the country.

“In the Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait Islander pop­u­la­tion it’s real­ly inter­est­ing to see how [men­tal health nurs­es] work along­side tra­di­tion­al med­i­cines, bush med­i­cine, and tra­di­tion­al heal­ers,” says Laura.

“[My ear­ly career was a] mas­sive peri­od of reflect­ing on my priv­i­lege as a white woman and learn­ing about his­to­ry. It was very, very eye-opening.”

At present, you’ll find Lau­ra divid­ing her time between her spe­cial­ty role of sex­u­al and repro­duc­tive health nurse in Lock­hart Riv­er in Far North Queens­land, and her new role as a Men­tal Health and Well­be­ing Edu­ca­tor at CRANAplus.

Lau­ra joined CRANAplus at the begin­ning of the year as a Well­be­ing Edu­ca­tor and she looks for­ward to draw­ing on her pro­fes­sion­al back­ground, as well as her own expe­ri­ences of the pres­sures of work­ing remotely.

“I think when you come from a place of being able to relate to peo­ple and what they might be going through, things are more sin­cere and are prob­a­bly a lit­tle bit more help­ful. Peo­ple feel a lot more val­i­dat­ed than from gener­ic edu­ca­tion that you might find online about men­tal health,” she says.

“And I think that’s the beau­ti­ful thing about CRANAplus, right?” 

CRANAplus Men­tal Health and Well­be­ing team, includ­ing Bush Sup­port Line staff all have expe­ri­ence work­ing in remote loca­tions across Aus­tralia. Lau­ra says this is what makes CRANAplus sup­port par­tic­u­lar­ly valu­able; hav­ing the abil­i­ty to draw from lived experiences. 

“There’s some­thing to be said from get­ting edu­ca­tion from peo­ple that have expe­ri­enced those things.”

Remote health clin­ics require the sup­port of many peo­ple and roles to func­tion well.

CRANAplus Well­be­ing Work­shops are avail­able to every­one involved in their oper­a­tion, includ­ing nurs­es, Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait Islander health work­ers, doc­tors, allied health, and admin­is­tra­tion and drivers.

“Obvi­ous­ly with­out all of those cogs, the wheel doesn’t turn,” Lau­ra says. ​“All peo­ple, no mat­ter their role – their expe­ri­ence is super rel­e­vant. Every­one deserves access to men­tal health and well­be­ing support.” 

Lau­ra goes on to explain that look­ing after your­self when you’re work­ing remote­ly is not always easy, but it is important. 

“Your risk fac­tors go up if you work remote. You’re more sus­cep­ti­ble to expe­ri­enc­ing men­tal health issues, increased alco­hol and drug use,” she says. 

A tip to begin is to look at the things you can con­trol, such as organ­is­ing planned leave, or sched­ul­ing an enjoy­able activ­i­ty for your next day off. 

“What I tend to do is plan some things for the week­end when I’m home. Even some­thing real­ly small like going to the gym, or going out to the reef div­ing,” she says. 

“Self-care is real­ly impor­tant: for you, but also the well­be­ing of your clients. As we say, ​‘you can’t pour from an emp­ty cup’.”