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The Canberra Business Podcast
Transforming Men's Mental Health with Men's Table
Men's Table Regional Host for NSW South, Michael Collins is transforming men's mental health support in our latest Canberra Business Podcast episode. With a mission to foster genuine conversation beyond the typical business or sports talk, Men's Table creates a sanctuary for men to connect, listen, and share life's challenges. Michael unveils the journey of this not-for-profit organization from its humble beginnings in 2011 to its expanding network, reaching out to bushfire-affected areas and establishing a strong presence right here in Canberra. Supported by the Snow Foundation and federal funding, Men's Table is uniting men across various walks of life—business professionals, retirees, and newcomers—into a diverse, supportive community.
We also tackle the hurdles Michael and his team face in maintaining sustainable operations amidst growing demand. From ensuring participants receive necessary clinical support, to striving for multi-year funding, the challenges are many, yet the impact is profound. Participants report significant personal growth and improved relationships, underscoring the group's value. As we explore these dynamics, we highlight the broader necessity of support networks to bolster mental well-being for everyone, and tease future episodes focused on mental health and well-being for women. Join us for an illuminating conversation about the power of communication and the pivotal role of community in mental health.
Hello and welcome to the Canberra Business Podcast, brought to you by the Canberra Business Chamber with the support of our friends at the University of Canberra. I'm Greg Harford from the Business Chamber and I'm joined today by Michael Collins, who heads up Men's Table, a not-for-profit supporting men's mental health. Michael, welcome to the podcast. Yeah, thanks for having us on. Look, it's great to have you here. Tell us a little bit about Men's Table. What does it do, how did it start and how's it going?
Speaker 2:Yeah, good Thanks, greg. Well, I wasn't one of the co-founders. Two co-founders were Ben and David, part of a business networking group and a group of men who met weekly. And after one of those occasions, ben was not having a good time and was sharing with a few of the other guys who he'd come to know reasonably well that he was in a rough place. Business wasn't good, relationship wasn't good. He was worried about himself and his family actually, so he said this doesn't feel like the right place to talk about it. And two other fellas said I hear you, ben, we've got our own stuff going on. And it was the next week that Ben, in his moment of need, turned towards setting up a men's group and said I'm setting up a men's group. We're not going to talk about business, footy or politics. We're going to talk about the real stuff of life. And that's what was the beginning of a lived experience of men back in 2011 who are business owners, who thought we need to do something different. And, yeah, fast forward to 2019.
Speaker 2:The charity was formed. Other men were asking to see what this men's table thing was all about, and that's when we took the opportunity to to work with initially with local councils where other people in Sydney, other men in Sydney, were asking for something similar, and by the end of that year I'd been. I was down in Bury in the south coast, and I reached out to David, one of the co-founders, and said I'd quite like to set something up down in Bury, and so I headed to the bushfires. Me and two others invited a group of men to an entree event, introductory night, in December, and our first table was on the 7th of January.
Speaker 2:Just after the fires had gone through, men from their 30s through their 80s joined in. Yeah, just some really open reflecting of how it had been to be going through a crisis like that with your family. So for me, my personal story was that I was looking for something. I'd been part of a men's group overseas when I'd been overseas for 14 years and I guess I really enjoyed that and had some real benefits from that. And so for me, by 2021, I was working full-time at the men's table, setting up bushfire-affected tables in communities north and south coast.
Speaker 1:So just unpack for us, Michael, a little bit more about what you do. So you grew out of a business networking group, but it's not a business networking event. How does it actually work? You get people around a table.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I guess the invitation is to have a different conversation. So we have a meal once a month, a private room, 6.30 to 9 o'clock, and there's some guiding principles that we learned from the founding table and those principles we call the fundamentals, and there's five key pillars to what we call a healthy table that we more about behaviors that we invite and manage. The quality of the conversation, which mainly focuses on sharing time and listening. Well, and the big one, that favorite one for all men, is actually the no fixing rule. Um, most men identify as fixes of some description and uh and so for being able to sort of sit and listen without having to come up with solutions actually quite refreshing. And for, mostly for the listener rather than for the man who's who's got an idea about what he might think is the right answer to someone's problem.
Speaker 2:Um, the, the diversity elements is think is the right answer to someone's problem. The diversity elements is one of the key elements, but the other four fundamentals are really around this idea of committing to being a part of it and growing a community of men. So you're asked to turn up for nine out of 12 months and grow the culture of the table. It's a peer group, so there's no facilitator or leader. You're actually co-leading, so everyone.
Speaker 2:The other principle and that rotates, so it's not just sitting with one or two men who feel the burden of maybe holding that space, and we do some mentoring for those men to keep them supported. And the other two things is this idea of confidentiality and, if any of you you know, being especially part of a smaller town, keeping your story to yourself, um is is what often happens. But having the trust to share it with other men usually comes when there's some confidentiality and, and that's what we find, men are willing to share, um, not just when they're shoulder to shoulder, but actually when they're face to face across a meal. And so we've built a culture in these tables different from probably other groups and you'd find in other.
Speaker 1:So how long have you been going here in Canberra and what sort of response have you had from business people?
Speaker 2:We've been really pleased to have funding from Terry Snow and the Snow Foundation and also communities at work and now actually the PHN, the Primary Health Care Network, federal government working with us.
Speaker 2:So we've got a really broad cross-section of men coming towards us with different cultural backgrounds, different professional backgrounds, guys literally you know there's a couple of guys who are tradies as well as small business owners, consultants, self-employed. So I think the cross-section of men, including men who just recently retired or recently relocated into the, into the community as well, a lot of people who have been here for for some time but haven't really dug some, some roots into, into the local community. So we find that the diversity is one of the really the key elements of tables is not sitting with a bunch of men who are just like you, which is often most of our groups. Our social groups are men like me, but the thing that men often enjoy is having men who are just very different and say wow and they learn more about themselves, but also just having built some empathy for their wider community of men.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so going well here. How many people have you got involved coming along?
Speaker 2:So we are doing well. Since August 2022, when we launched our first round of tables here, I went out to 13, where I got another for plan to the next 12 months, including around the Canberra region, in Murrumbateman, yes, and, and out in Braidwood heading down to Cooma this week as well. So within Canberra itself, we have 13 tables and that's roughly if we work on 12 men per table. So we build the table up to that size, so we're about 130 men at the moment.
Speaker 1:All right, and I understand you kind of. You know it's a peer group, but you've also got some additional support where required. How does that work?
Speaker 2:Well, I guess, because some of this is challenging for fellas, if it wasn't, you know, talking about how we feel and what's really going on, and it's sharing the highs and lows of life. So it's not a pity party or a support group, you know, it's not a therapy group. It's actually being supportive and of each other by listening, for for us a lot of these skills are new and so the it can be challenging at times. For for fellas, they maybe get confused about why they actually came and just get reminded these fundamentals that this is, this is why we're here. And also we're really clear about the limits of what a peer group can do.
Speaker 2:And as much as people might want to be supportive of each other, if someone's having a real bad time and going through some sort of crisis, it might not be appropriate to try and support them at a table. It's better to actually refer them to some clinical supports. So referral pathways is what we have in place. So if things get challenging, we who work for the men's table full-time and called the kitchen and there's a phone call through to, to myself and and we'll have a chat about how best to manage situations at the table where guys are finding some challenge, and even when there's interpersonal challenge, we've gone back in and done things called table resets or annual table visits, where we help the table reflect on what's worked well and what's worked less well and how can it actually work better in the future. Especially, sometimes tables find them maybe staying a bit superficial and the level of depth and sharing might not have progressed from the beginning, and so there's just some expertise we've got, I suppose, over time in terms of how to help tables evolve and grow.
Speaker 1:Now you're a relatively small not-for-profit. What do you think are the big challenges in kind of operating in that environment and what are the biggest issues you're facing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess it's a good question. I mean, we've all come from business backgrounds, actually, so none of us really from a not-for-profit background. So first foray, the challenge is multi-year funding. So it's the same challenge you have for business, right, what's my sales pipeline look like? But when you've separated your customer from your funder, that's often a challenge that I don't call man who sit at tables customers. It's our community. So I guess what we've challenged by is the demand we have is exponentially growing. We have at least over 800 men waiting on the wait list, 200,000, 400 men already at tables.
Speaker 1:So the demand is around New South Wales, around New South.
Speaker 2:It's around the whole of Australia. Now we're in eight states and territories, so 50% of those are in the regional areas. So I guess one of our biggest challenges is how do we meet the demands? At the moment AFT is like 14. How do we scale it so we can grow more tables and this community of men that are connecting actually can be self-sustaining? Because we're not looking for a one-year program, we're looking for building tables of multi-years.
Speaker 2:So this enduring legacy and getting a value of that the government seeing that as valuable, the committee seeing that as valuable and putting an economic value to it is really hard.
Speaker 2:So well-being metrics, uh, something that we really are doubling down on is trying to say how does building social capital and building social connectedness and reducing isolation actually improve health outcomes, improve community outcomes, improve relational outcomes? And I guess finding out who cares about that is one of our challenges. A lot of people care, but having a sort of cross across, sort of a more holistic focus on community, often we try to get boxed into one little box as an organization and we're trying to say well, actually, you know, those boxes don't always serve us and they might serve funding, but they don't necessarily serve what we do. So it's this, this idea of demonstrating our benefit and um and being sustainable and, and I guess, being reliant on government funding, which doesn't always uh, doesn't always come in tranches of three-year bundles, which is what we'd like to ask for. So moving to philanthropic funding, like the snow foundation and corporate funders, is something that we're looking to do because we believe everybody cares about this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so on the subject of outcomes, I mean, what's been the impact of your work over the last few years?
Speaker 2:That's a really good question. We actually do some. I think something quite well for us is measuring our outcomes.
Speaker 2:We've produced our latest report called the Strengthening Communities of Care. All of this is available on our website. It's the fifth research report we've had based on feedback from men at tables. So there's a 42% research response rate from our annual survey and it feeds back saying that 87% of men have told us that the table's meeting their needs. They tell us they're looking for connection and belonging and a real conversation and contribute to other men. I guess they're also telling us that it's a safe place to share, right? So that's important.
Speaker 2:And 90% of men say that the fundamentals, the guiding principles, are really working in helping them make a healthy table and helping them become better listeners. Actually, and for women who we've interviewed as partners of men at tables, they're noticing that their men are less lonely and it's improving their relationships with their men outside of the tables, including for them that 10% of them reported less use of anger and demeaning language in their relationships, which has helped them basically have better relationships with their partners. So I guess for us, supporting community growth isn't just about the man turns up for himself, sees how he can be part of a community of 11 or 12 men. And then the ripple effects we talk about in terms of benefits beyond. That is what we're starting to track and measure.
Speaker 1:So you talk a lot about kind of the sense of community that comes from a table group. But what makes men's table different from other groups that men might be associating with, either in the workplace or the bowling club or the sports club or whatever?
Speaker 2:I guess it's the regularity of connection and the commitment you make to turning up, because trust builds with men, especially when they're going to share, possibly, some personal stuff over time. So it requires you to turn up. It's the shared leadership and ownership. Is is critical, that we actually creating this together so it'll have its own flavor, um, and and the and that's brings agency actually for and then the sense of ownership. So every table's got its own flavor, but it's the quality of the conversation and the attitude and spirit of care that exists, that it's expected that, hey, if someone didn't turn up, he's going to get a phone call.
Speaker 2:Hey, mate, how you doing? Is everything okay? Um, we've missed you, um, and so that's where and I guess that's an explicit invitation and our sort of ethos at the moment uh, that we've shifted from this idea of healthy men and healthy masculinities, is is morphed into something, this idea that a caring connection, uh, men have the capacity and the ability to care for each other actually, and that's, and I think what does that look like? And and I think, um, we've actually modeled that in what we're seeing at men at tables so what makes men's well-being different to women?
Speaker 1:why do? Why do men need to get together in a special group to talk about their feelings?
Speaker 2:yeah, good question like most of us who know any women, will see that this is potentially a lot easier for them and more natural and intuitive. And I won't speculate whether there's biology or sociology or just learned behavior, but I think there's certain cultures where it, you know, I've seen Mediterranean cultures, for instance, are really strong around having strong male connections and relationships. I think as we age, I've seen a lot of men actually get disconnected from the people who used to be close to them. Maybe they're moving up the hierarchy in an organization. They get feeling more isolated and less connected. More competitive environments men, you know, operate in competitive environments and the idea of, like you know, being vulnerable is a bit scary.
Speaker 2:Actually it doesn't match with a competitive environment, but actually we call vulnerability just another way of being courageous. So framing and reframing the experience of sharing and being listened to and being heard and doing that for other men is is actually like we're allowed to. A lot of this is about giving permission to do something that we haven't done before otherwise. For women, they have permission because they just turn up and I think that it's, it's uh, it's an expected behavior. Um, for a lot of them, and for men, it's unexpected. A lot of men tell us hey, this is the first time I've ever listened to or heard or spoken to men in this way on a very first meeting, so the feedback's been profound.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we're recording this podcast at holiday time now. For many people, whether they're men or women, it's a time of joy and friendship and fellowship, but for some people, of course, it is also a time of sort of deep financial family stress, loneliness even. Do you find that demand for your services increases at this time of year, and how does that work when you're meeting monthly?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess our inquiry process is we have a man, two men, who are actually our concierge front desk. So we get phone calls throughout the year and we are really clear that we are going to be open for inquiry all the time. Tables however before you join a table there's an expectation you attend an entree. So those entrees are scheduled fortnightly online and in person. We've got them in Yassin, murrumbateman and Belconnen happening early next year in February and March. So registering for that is the starting point.
Speaker 2:If you want to get, if you've made a new year's resolution, you want to give yourself a gift of connection with other men and that's something you're feeling, you know a positive step looks like registering to, to to engage and be part of a new forming table If that's something you want to be interested in, or go to an existing table. So that's the the action I would encourage men to do right now. I know it's a challenging time. So we have seen that tables actively connect with each other and are wary of men who are potentially isolated at the table. But for new men coming towards us, the first step is let's get you to an entree, let's get you on a path towards a table and see if it's a good fit for you at this time and we'd be welcoming any approaches to our website, themenstableorg, and that's the tab called Get Involved and register for an entree. So at least you've made that one step towards your way to a community of men around you.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Now we're heading into 2025. The world's not slowing down. There's a lot of worry out there, ranging from the state of the economy, interest rates impacting household income. The gloomy geopolitical situation isn't helping many people. What advice do you have for blokes and indeed women for that matter who might just be feeling a bit unsettled or unhappy as we move into 2025?
Speaker 2:There's no panacea for the things that keep on tending to roll around, don't they? I think uncertainty is something that we're getting used to. I think it's how we respond to uncertainty. That's actually the message is. Rather than being worried about the next catastrophe, I really enjoy the moment where we can actually just sit down and be present with how we're feeling. For men especially, we can project into the future or regret the past, but actually be able to just really be present with it in our own bodies and our own experiences, and sharing that and feeling like that's normal.
Speaker 2:I think one of the greatest gifts is not feeling like you're on your own and actually that other people are going through some stuff and it doesn't mean that your stuff is less or less significant, but it definitely feels like you can lighten the load when you can share it, and knowing that you're in this together with other people and that maybe, if you need help, there might be some people you can ask for, and that it's okay to feel it and to it, uh, and to share it. And if there's a place if you haven't got a place to share it, then just, you know, create one and and and that doesn't sound, maybe that sounds simplistic just create one but ask for it. And if we can ask for things that we need, then, you know, maybe some of that anxiety goes down, some of that stress goes away and we feel like we can control something, at least in our worlds. That's, I'm not sure the pearl of wisdom, but if anyone's got any ideas, I'd be happy to hear feedback on that as well.
Speaker 1:Excellent and people can get in touch with you via your website at themenstableorg, so that's a great way to connect Michael Collins. Thank you so much for joining me. It's been great way to connect. Michael Collins. Thank you so much for joining me. It's been great having you on the podcast and we'll be continuing to talk about mental health and wellbeing on the Canberra Business Podcast, including for women, in coming episodes. Now this podcast has been presented by the Canberra Business Chamber in association with the University of Canberra and as we move into the new year, your business and any business can benefit from fresh ideas and perspectives by engaging a student intern from UC. So if you'd like to know more, just email careers at canberraeduau and the team there will be very happy to help you out. But, Michael, thank you very much for joining us from the men's table. It's been great having you here and great chatting. Thank you very much.