One Sydney Catholic Schools student’s work takes the 2023 Mental Health Month theme, We all have a role to play, to heart.

When it comes to promoting positive mental health, Archie Kingham is ahead of the curve.

The Marist College Eastwood Year 11 student has developed an initiative called Mental Mates.

Drawing on the expertise of organisations including headspace, the program offers workshops and talks that give high school students the tools to speak about and improve their mental health.

Archie created the initiative in five months through youth leadership program Max Potential. The program asks participants aged 16 to 18 to deliver a community service pitch that takes an entrepreneurial approach to meeting needs in their local community.

“What inspired me to come up with the idea was that people were constantly saying high school is stressful, and that being a teenager is stressful,” Archie said.

“However I never heard my peers commenting on their stress, no matter how obvious it was.”

“The idea of Mental Mates is to create a school environment where students no longer feel that there is a stigma surrounding mental health.” – Archie Kingham

Archie attributes the reluctance to speak about stress, anxiety and other mental health concerns to a stigma that he hopes Mental Mates will help to break.

The program will include small group workshops and guest speakers to share their experience of mental health to give students pathways to speak openly about their concerns and find help when needed for themselves and others.

“No other organisation, as far as I could find, was actually doing this,” Archie said.

During the program’s development Archie surveyed his school community and a majority …