Hamilton Centre Podcast | Exploring Mental Health & Addiction · Hamilton Centre

EP 11 - Youth-focused mental health and AOD care: Lived experience and family voices

·48 min·3 clips

Nathan says people at needle exchanges and safe injecting rooms can make shame turn into agency.

1. Hamilton Centre Podcast episode 11 focuses on youth-focused mental health and AOD care through lived experience and family voices in Victoria. 2. Annie Williams hosts the conversation, while Nathan Avaloz from WISAS and Donna Ortiz from the WISAS Family Reference Group explain why their roles matter. 3. The episode asks how WISAS can use resilience-based practice, lived experience, and family input to improve support for young people and carers. 4. Nathan says the CRU uses lived and living experience to improve WISAS through child safety training, naloxone training, flyers, reports, and board input. 5. He says advocacy has to be shaped “case to case” and “culture to culture,” including preference for working with First Nations organisations. 6. Nathan identifies stigma as a major barrier across AOD, mental health, homelessness, and sex work. 7. Donna says the Family Reference Group began about three years ago with three parents or family supporters and one youth worker. 8. She says the group now includes more family members and another youth worker, and is creating resources so families can support young people. 9. Donna describes resilience as “having hope” and taking life “day by day” when isolation and judgement are heavy. 10. Nathan says resilience means people are “not broken,” and that guilt and shame can block young people from moving forward. 11. Nathan explains that language around addiction and mental health keeps evolving, with some young people preferring older terms while others reject them. 12. He gives examples including the word “junky,” which some young people use to reclaim meaning, and “child protection kits,” which his partner dislikes as a label. 13. Nathan says needle exchanges and safe injecting rooms made him feel less ashamed because staff treated him with respect and told him the behaviour was the right thing to do. 14. He says lived and living experience workers are easy to recognise because they understand the reality of these situations, not just the theory. 15. Donna says parents and carers often cannot talk openly about a young person’s risky behaviour, drug use, or criminal activity because of stigma. 16. She says her own measure of success is very different from “finishing year 12 and going on to uni,” and now includes her son being alive at 18. 17. The conversation has a calm, reflective interview style, with Annie Williams asking direct follow-up questions and letting both guests answer at length. 18. Nathan and Donna speak in practical, personal terms, often moving between service design, family experience, and examples from day-to-day support. 19. Listeners interested in youth mental health, family carers, or AOD services will get the most from it. 20. Listeners wanting a fast policy debate without personal testimony may skip it.

As heard by us

A grounded conversation about stigma, family strain, and personal definitions of progress in mental health and addiction support.

The episode keeps its focus on lived and living experience, and that gives the discussion a steady weight. It is strongest when stigma is tied to ordinary isolation, with parents trying to speak honestly to friends, family, or colleagues while also resisting the habit of having…

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Why you'd press play

For parents and carers trying to stay steady around youth mental health and AOD care.

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