Alumni Impact Awards 2022

Vanessa Latham did her Southern Cross University nursing placement at the Broken Hill Base Hospital and Royal Flying Doctor Service over a decade ago and fell in love with the community and landscape instantly.

"It just struck me how quickly we fitted into the community. Coming back a few years later to live and work, I still had connections from my time here as a placement student nurse,” she said.

Vanessa has called Broken Hill home for eleven years now. She is currently the Mental Health Manager at RFDS Southern Eastern Section, supporting people living with extremely adverse conditions due to lifestyle impacts, geographical isolation, and individual vulnerabilities.

"When I started, there were just two of us, and now there's over thirty,” she said.

The team includes counsellors, psychologists, play therapists, art therapists and mental health nurses, community engagement, lived experience workers and Alcohol and Other Drug (AoD) clinicians.

"Had I not come to Broken Hill on my placement, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

Vanessa has played a crucial role in implementing the ‘wellbeing space’ for the RFDS, a place where anyone can access preventative support and wellbeing services such as yoga, meditation and treatment interventions such as counselling and psychotherapies.

"The wellbeing place is designed so that the minute you walk through the door, it's a really calming, peaceful environment,” she said.  

"A lot of the workshops are in partnership with local people, so it allows them to share their skills for the benefit of the community's health and wellbeing.” 

Regional and remote communities have access to mental health services at one-fifth the rate of city populations. With this in mind, it’s no secret that Vanessa finds her job very fulfilling.

"The most rewarding part of my job is those one-on-one connections where you can just use yourself to accept them as they are, and in that moment, they show compassion, and I show compassion,” she said. "It's an absolute privilege working with people listening and hearing some of the hardest things they have to live through, and just being alongside them and helping them,” she said.

Despite Vanessa’s extensive career portfolio that has taken her to some of the most remote yet rewarding Australian locations, she still wonders what more she can be doing.

"As much as we try so many different strategies, I always wonder who's out there that we don't yet know,” she said. The wellbeing space is now expanding to a purpose-built facility, and Vanessa will continue through her work to break the stigma of mental health and welcome anyone with open arms.