Get Real: Talking mental health & disability
Get Real presents frank and fearless conversations about mental health and disability, including people with lived experience, frontline workers in the sector, as well as policymakers and advocates. Get Real is produced and hosted by Emily Webb and co-hosted by Karenza Louis-Smith on behalf of Meridia, which brings together not-for-profit mental health, disability and employment services provider organisations including The Disability Trust, ermha365, OC Connections, Marriott Services, Bedford and embarc.
Get Real: Talking mental health & disability
Episode 15: Lived Experience series (Part 2), Steve Cain – Nothing Is Impossible
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Imagine for a minute that you’re a young boy in the late ‘60s growing up in country Victoria. Yours is a typical childhood in many ways, but you are a little too fond of getting into trouble. On your twelfth birthday, you are made a Ward of the State and find yourself in Turana Youth Training Centre, starting your apprenticeship for a career of crime, drug addiction, mental illness and homelessness.
What happens next?
What kind of life will you have?
And how do you survive and thrive from such a traumatic experience?
This is the story of Steve Cain, our special guest in GET REAL’s second Lived Experience episode. This week, Steve talks to guest host Karenza Louis-Smith about how he embarked on a life as a career criminal at the tender age of 12, immersing himself in a world of drug taking and crime for the next 20 years, until at 35 he decided he wanted his life to be different. And so he set about changing the world – one person, one job, and one dollar at a time.
Now the Founder and Program Facilitator at Empathy Not Sympathy, Steve describes his life journey as one that has gone from – in his own words – “the gutter to glory”, overcoming addiction issues and childhood trauma to help others see that in their own lives, nothing is impossible.
For more information:
ermha365 complex mental health & disability services – https://www.ermha.org/
Steve Cain, Empathy Not Sympathy - http://empathynotsympathy.com.au/
Meridia represents the next evolution of a group of long-standing and trusted social service organisations working across disability, mental health, employment, community inclusion, social enterprise, allied health and clinical services.
Together, we bring organisations including The Disability Trust, ermha365, OC Connections, Marriott Support Services, Bedford and embarc into a more connected and future-focused structure.
Helplines (Australia):
Lifeline 13 11 14
QLIFE 1800 184 527
13 YARN 13 92 76
Suicide Callback Service 1300 659 467
Meridia acknowledges that our work in the community takes place on the Traditional Lands of many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and therefore respectfully recognise their Elders, past and present, and the ongoing Custodianship of the Land and Water by all Members of these Communities.
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