Page 56 - Print 21 magazine Jul-Aug 2021

Associations
A healthy perspective at
Women in Print breakfast
With mental health emerging as a beneficiary of the government’s latest budget review, it was timely that it too was the focus of the Women in Print (WIP) Breakfast Series recently held around the country. Lindy Hughson was one of the women in the Print21 team attending the Sydney event.
The well-attended Sydney Women in Print (WIP) Breakfast Series was one of five that ran through autumn, with the others in
Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, and was the first face-to-face WIP event since the rebirth of the association.
The Sydney event was held at Waterview in Bicentennial Park, with 120 women from the print industry joining together. It was opened by NSW WIP Patron Debbie Burgess, joint managing director
of Bright Print, who gave a brief overview of some of the new developments at WIP.
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She set the context for the discussion to follow on mental health and well-being by reinforcing WIP’s three purposes: to support the contributions of women in print; to promote the effective networking and mentoring for women from
all walks of life; and to promote career paths and encourage women to enter and work in the print communications industry.
Burgess said, “I believe that through education awareness programmes,
we can empower our communities to create positive change, and develop a sustainable model to support the well- being of our friends, family and the wider community.”
When Wo/Man Anchor’s Steve Gamble and Liz Whyte from Life Foundations took the floor, it was clear from the get-go that this was a subject that touched everyone
in the room, and although the
topic was perhaps triggering for some, it was one the audience
was keen to explore. And the speakers, experienced as they are at facilitating a range of mental health support programs, handled it with care and aplomb.
To set the scene, the duo ran through some sobering statistics, including: one in five Australians aged between 16 and 85 will experience a common mental illness in a 12-month