CRANAplus pro­vides free, flex­i­ble, online well­be­ing work­shops to rur­al and remote health work­places through­out Australia. 

MC was sched­uled to deliv­er one of these work­shops to a team in Dar­win a few days before she had planned to trav­el to Kununur­ra on a per­son­al trip, and saw an excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to do some­thing spe­cial while she was up north, in a place close to her heart. 

“I thought, ​‘Oh, this would be good to do face to face.’” MC says, and so she flew up a day ear­li­er than planned in order to deliv­er the work­shop in person. 

“Which was real­ly nice to do, espe­cial­ly in Dar­win, because my son was pre­mie, and he was born in Dar­win Hos­pi­tal,” she recalls.

“It was prob­a­bly ten years since I was last at Dar­win Hos­pi­tal, and it was nice to give back some­thing, because they gave a lot to me when we were there.”

CRANAplus’ well­be­ing work­shops are designed to help teams meet the chal­lenges of pro­vid­ing health care in their unique set­ting, and can be cus­tomised to each workplace. 

MC explains, ​“In a lot of the pro­fes­sions that we work with, it’s all those car­ing, giv­ing pro­fes­sions, which is beau­ti­ful, but in order to do that well, you have to do stuff for your­self. A lot of the well­be­ing work­shops are about how to look after yourself.”

“We actu­al­ly need to do self-care. You can’t not do it and be good at your job. It’s not option­al. It’s like water – you need water, you need self­care to do your job. 

“Burnout is real, but it’s pre­ventable. You can do things before you get burnt out. In the med­ical pro­fes­sion, there are a lot of things you can do to pre­vent dis­eases and all that kind of stuff. Our brains are the same. It’s about get­ting those mes­sages to people.”

After the work­shop, MC head­ed from Dar­win to Kununur­ra, and paid a few sur­prise vis­its to local clin­ics on the way, includ­ing Tim­ber Creek, Ade­laide Riv­er and Kather­ine, to share some Men­tal Health & Well­be­ing resources.

“It’s just real­ly nice let­ting peo­ple know what sup­ports are out there, because a lot of peo­ple don’t know. And some­times you get stuck in your space and you think you’re alone, when you’re not,” MC says.

“As humans, we’re hard­wired for con­nec­tion, and I think it’s impor­tant to have that. Hav­ing lived remote, I know that you don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly know what you don’t know. So it’s great get­ting out and meet­ing with peo­ple and let­ting them know what ser­vices are out there that they can use.

“Also, it’s love­ly meet­ing peo­ple who choose this as the life they’re want­i­ng to live. It’s a real honour.” 

MC found it espe­cial­ly impor­tant to let the teams know about CRANAplus’ 24/7 free and con­fi­den­tial Bush Sup­port Line (1800 805 391). 

She says, ​“The Bush Sup­port Line is so good. It’s a great ser­vice for peo­ple. You can call unlim­it­ed times. You can talk for how­ev­er long you want. For some peo­ple it’s quick, where­as oth­er peo­ple you’re not rush­ing, and as a ther­a­pist, it’s real­ly nice to be able to do that for peo­ple. You just give peo­ple what they need, when they need it.” 

“It’s great to be able to con­nect with peo­ple to let them know that this is an option.” 

This is the sec­ond time MC has dropped into clin­ics dur­ing her per­son­al trav­els to deliv­er CRANAplus resources, and she’s already start­ed think­ing about which work­places she could drop in to in future. 

“I’m like, ​‘Where to next!’ Bring it on.”