GoodYarn: building mental health literacy in New Zealand’s rural workforce

Abstract

Purpose “GoodYarn” is a skills-based workshop that focusses on building mental health literacy in rural communities, members of which are known to experience geographic, attitudinal and service configuration barriers to accessing mental health services. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of the GoodYarn project on raising mental health literacy in the rural community. Design/methodology/approach GoodYarn is primarily for farmers, their families and farm workers, as well as the “farmer facing” workforce. The focus on mental health literacy aligns with the mental health promotion approach of using methods that foster supportive environments. By raising the mental health literacy of those not directly needing help, but in positions to help those that do – such as employers, rural professionals and rural support industries who are well placed to perceive stressors in farmers – GoodYarn builds a community with the knowledge and skills to identify and approach those experiencing mental distress or illness, and direct them to appropriate support and services. All participants in the GoodYarn workshops (n=430) were invited to complete a questionnaire at the end of the workshop. All participants answered the questionnaire, with over 80 per cent answering all questions. Findings Participant feedback affirmed the utility of GoodYarn as an effective vehicle to facilitate the discussion of mental illness in rural farming communities of New Zealand. GoodYarn had a significant positive impact on the three immediate workshop indicators of awareness, confidence and knowledge (p<0.001 for all three indicators). Further, the high level of concordance in workshop outcomes across various organisations’ delivery indicates programme consistency and quality has been maintained throughout the upscaling of the programme. Originality/value The uptake of the GoodYarn programme by rural organisations and communities at a national level, and the positive evaluation results, provide encouragement that building mental health literacy in the rural workforce is a promising mental health promotion strategy.

Tailored Mental Health Literacy Training Improves Mental Health Knowledge and Confidence among Canadian Farmers

“…Evidence suggests that increasing mental health literacy can help to reduce mental health struggles within the general population [15]. Previous work in farming populations has indicated that tailoring MHL programs to farmers may result in the greatest impact for participants [10,11,16]. We evaluated the effectiveness of "In the Know", a mental health literacy training program that was developed in partnership with the Canadian agricultural community and partners from mental health, over a 6-month period.…”

“…Our evaluation study builds on the formal evaluation of the MHL training that was tailored to the agricultural community in New Zealand (GoodYarn), which showed improvements in mental health awareness, confidence, and knowledge from pre-to post-training but indicated that future research would benefit from longer-term follow-ups [11]. The "In the Know" evaluation addressed this gap, assessing the impact of the training beyond the "immediate post-training timepoint" by including follow-up assessments at 3 and 6 months post-training.…”

“…Descriptive statistics (e.g., frequencies and proportions) were used to summarize the data. Consistent with previous work in the area of mental health literacy among farmers, and as the data were non-parametric, differences in knowledge, confidence, and helping behaviours at T0, T1, T2, and T3 were assessed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test [11,20]. A significant difference was denoted by a p-value of <0.05.…”

“…In Australia [10] and New Zealand [11], mental health literacy programming was developed specifically for farming populations and was successful in reaching farmers and increasing general report significant improvements across all four objectives. We also hypothesized that increases in knowledge and confidence would remain significantly improved at both the 3-month and 6-month post-training follow-ups.…”

The role of agricultural professionals in identifying, mitigating and supporting farming families during times of stress: Findings of a qualitative study

“…7,11 Little is known about why some farming families are more vulnerable to mental health problems than others. 7 Solutions have primarily been centred around health promotion (mental well-being); recognising the signs and symptoms of suicide (mental health literacy) 12 ; as well as ensuring that mental health services are available and resourced to address the needs of these often isolated communities. The notion of the resilient farmer and resilient farming systems are currently the dominant discourses in addressing concerns about farmers' mental well-being as well as mental illness in New Zealand.…”