Teaching duties during September took me to Eyre Peninsula, with many days spent at Cleve Area School and a short stint at Kimba.
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It was at Kimba that I became aware of the work being done by the group called Our Town.
The vision of Our Town is an engaged and connected community that values all people equally, as well as health and well-being. To continually build on a mentally healthy and resilient community while creating safe spaces and an environment of acceptance.
The good thing I observed, it is predominantly young people who are driving the initiative.
One issue that precipitated the creation of Our Town was the uncomfortable division in the Kimba community, born from being forced to pick a side and vote yes or no on the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility being located at Kimba.
The last thing small communities need is to be divided. It was a case of "can we agree to disagree and where do we go from here?".
Our Town's mental health work paralleled much of the work I do with Let's Talk at Warrnambool, Vic, but there were substantial differences.
Tackling mental health from a whole of community point of view was a reminder for me of the value of community groups and sport.
When departing Kimba, I caught up with Jeremy Edwards, who leads the mental health initiatives of Our Town and he was busy finalising the arrangements for the forthcoming billiards competition.
The previous competition had eight teams and 60-odd players and the new competition has 12 teams and many more players.
This was just one example of getting members of their community to mix again or even meet for the first time.
With activities like these, it is hard to measure the benefit to the individual's mental health but it goes without saying that it would have been positive.
My return journey from EP involved a detour to the Riverland to attend the Kick off your Boots theatre production at Loxton.
Again, this was a mental health initiative - a play written by local farmer John Gladigau about farming issues for farmers.
The script cleverly dealt with issues like succession, gender equality, depression, anxiety and the breaking down of farming stereotypes.
The succinct use of classic songs with lyric changes to deliver a message, and the timely use of humour, made for a fun evening and delivery of key messages.
I was part of an audience of 200 people in the fifth performance for this season.
Kick off Your Boots allowed the theatre-goers to look in a mirror and check off how they were going with their mental health and the performance modelled some ways issues could be tackled.
It was a great reminder a psychologist is not the only way of improving mental health.
My trip to EP was yet another reminder the unintended benefits of the things we do in life can outweigh the intended ones.
It must be said, the teaching role was positive as well.
