The charity, which aims to build resilience and life skills in young people living in Hamilton and the surrounding region, knew it needed extra resources to be able to grow and assist the number of local children who needed support.

The Ross Trust recently provided a $120,000 grant to build the capacity of Standing Tall in the form of a project officer. 

“We’re so excited to have this opportunity,” said Standing Tall project manager Dee Barrera. “We don’t get any government funding, so we are always seeking partnerships with philanthropic partners that have similar values to ours.”

Standing Tall can now count on the continued employment of a project officer, Erica, who works across the 16 schools that the organisation partners to provide mentoring sessions. She sets up activities for sessions and is available as a resource, while also writing a mentor handbook to support the mental wellbeing of the local adults who volunteer to work with students.

Having grown to 16 schools, with active mentoring in all but two of them, assisting almost 100 children, the workload has expanded. Standing Tall works individually with students when they enter the mentoring program, and spends time with potential mentors, to try to perfectly match the two. 

 The aim is to provide an adult presence outside of the student’s usual family and school circles, with whom the student can bond, develop trust and discuss issues. The waters can be deep. In 2022, several suicides rippled through the Hamilton area, meaning many Standing Tall mentors were helping students navigate the sudden departure of a family member or somebody in their life. 

“The child might have lost a parent or a carer or somebody significant in their life, but they’ll come to the school session, and they will talk about that person nonstop in a very positive and happy way. Whereas I think the expectation a lot of the time is that if they’re grieving, they don’t want to talk about it,” Dee said. “Some do want to shut down, but we just say, our promise to the child is we let them lead the session. So, if that’s their way of dealing and they want to talk about it, we are there to support them. We only step in and provide professional help if we believe they’re not safe or that they need the extra support.

“But even when they are getting professional support, having that extra adult of a mentor in their life gives them that sense of security and safety at school to help them cope with being back at school, following a significant death in their life,” she said. 

Growing up in regional Victoria is difficult, along with all the usual pressures, demands and expectations of a young person. A common issue among the students referred to Standing Tall’s programs is low self-confidence, as well as difficulty communicating effectively with adults. “That inability to communicate effectively with adults can mean they’re disengaging from class because they can’t communicate effectively with their teachers,” Dee said. “Effective communication with their peers is another issue because if they don’t have that, it means they can’t make friends and they feel isolated.”

The mentoring works so well that Standing Tall is often the first to become aware of serious issues, even before the student’s school. “If anything has come up in their life where they need mental health support for or safety support, we can provide that linkage through the Ross Trust-funded project officer, or through my role, if they’re grieving a death in the family or similar. We can provide those linkages very quickly to get support for that student,” Dee said. “Often the school may not know that there’s a concern for the child, but we find out because they’ve built such a strong trusting relationship with their mentor, that they talk to their mentor before they talk to anyone else at school.”

Dee remains profoundly grateful to the Ross Trust for backing the organisation’s work. 

“It means so much to us to know that they (the Ross Trust) reached out and believe in us,” she said. “We believe in what we do, and we know that what we do is meaningful, but to know that an organisation like the Ross Trust, which is so trusted in our community and valued by so many other organisations, also believes in us, it just means a lot. We are excited to work with them, and we are excited to keep our project officer on for another three years, which will be fantastic for us, and takes the pressure off. I believe the Ross Trust knew that that was a really important role for our organisation and we just couldn’t be more grateful. We’re looking forward to continuing to grow the partnership.”