Introduction – Supporting the Emotional Wellness of Regional Communities
The adverse impact on the state of Emotional Wellness of New Zealanders over the last few years due to covid, the weather events, and the cost of living, does not require any research or studies. All you need to do is to simply ask, “how are you coping?”. Sadly, the normal response Garth receives are stories of challenges, struggles, and hardship. This is especially so in smaller communities, which are the backbone of New Zealand.
It’s a bold assumption, but one that Garth believes is true, and that is, no-one has escaped from the negative tentacles of these events… himself included! Since his focus is in the area of Emotional Wellness, the question he asked himself was, “what can I do?”. This resulted in the development of Garth’s 2-day Emotional Wellness course.
In his course, Garth refers to the Emotional Wellness strategies that he applied to cope with and manage his personal challenges, or as Garth refers to them, life’s waves. Garth’s waves include losing his house due to business ventures, being made redundant 4 times over a period of 6 years with no pay-outs and encountering long periods of unemployment, supporting his mother to accept and adjust to living in a Care Home after suffering a stroke and then sadly passing, relationship breakup, plus dealing with narcissistic people personally and professionally.
Throughout these experiences Garth had times where he struggled emotionally, however, by applying proactive and constructive Emotional Wellness strategies he reduced the window of suffering and managed to successfully ride life’s waves. These experiences resulted in the creation of his evidenced-based Emotional Wellness Models, which form the foundation for his Emotional Wellness course.
Garth defines Emotional Wellness as a state of self-awareness and readiness to proactively and constructively respond and cope emotionally to life’s waves. Garth uses the term ‘Emotional Wellness’ rather than the more commonly term ‘Mental Health’. This is because his objective is to provide an early proactive intervention, which builds a strong Emotional Wellness foundation to support an individual’s state of Emotional Wellness when faced with life’s inevitable waves.
The objective of the course is to provide Emotional Wellness information, tools, and strategies. This is achieved through the practical and interactive course content. Garth draws upon his 20 plus years of facilitating to create a learning environment that is fun, funky, and unforgettable. Resulting in a highly engaging and practical experience for his participants. He achieves this through his relaxed and non-threatening training concept called ‘A Coffee with Garth’.
Through Garth’s Community Emotional Wellness Programme initiative, he aims to achieve his goal of supporting the Emotional Wellness of regional communities who may normally not have the opportunity to attend this type of training. To reach these communities, Garth is planning ‘A Coffee with Garth’ travelling roadshows.
Community Emotional Wellness Programme – How it Works
Potential Course Participants – Developing Community Emotional Wellness Champions
Even though the course has been designed for individuals to develop their Emotional Wellness, to achieve the best long-term impact for a community, Garth recommends representatives from different areas of the community to attend. This is because they then become the Community Emotional Wellness Champions who can support the Emotional Wellness of individuals within their specific area of the community. The community representatives could potentially be from community groups and services, iwi, schools (staff and youth leaders), churches, Aged Care facilities, healthcare, social service providers, NGOs, business association, and council. Alternatively, individual community groups or services my choose to hold a Community Emotional Wellness Programme specifically for them.
To take this to the level, the participants establish an Emotional Wellness Group where they meet regularly post-course to discuss how they applied the course content, i.e., reflect on their learning goals, share wins and challenges, progress, and their next actions. Then as Community Emotional Wellness Champions they develop groups for their specific area of the community to share their Emotional Wellness knowledge … creating an ‘Emotional Wellness Ripple Effect’ throughout the community.
Community Emotional Wellness Programme Lead
The purpose and role of the Community Emotional Wellness Programme Lead is to manage the initiative for the community. The advantage of this is that they know the locals and are in touch first-hand with the challenges the community is facing. Ideally, they would be from one of the areas of the community who would nominate a person within their community group, for example, the business association, and would preferably attend the course. They act as a co-ordinator liaising with Garth, funders, community groups, and be the main point of contact for the course participants.
The role would involve promoting the Emotional Wellness course to the wider community, seeking and securing funding, arranging course logistics (venue, date and times, catering), registering the participants, pre and post-course course communication to the participants, supporting the Community Emotional Wellness Champions with their post-course meetings (this role could be delegated to one of the champions), reporting outcomes back to the funders and the wider community, keeping the initiative alive and exciting, but most importantly… celebrating the success of the Community Emotional Wellness Programme.
An Investment in Your Community – Funding the Emotional Wellness Course
To ensure the training happens for communities, Garth has reduced the price of the course for communities by creating a Community Group Fixed Price Offer. This is where a community substantial saves from the standard public course price by the way of a fixed price to a maximum of 12 participants – delivering to a small group of 12 provides better learning outcomes for the participants. The price is fixed even if less than the maximum number of 12 attend the course. Therefore, to fully benefit from this offer, a community needs to book the maximum number of participants onto the course.
Community Group Fixed Price Offer is $8,500 + GST, which equals $708.33 + GST per participant with 12 participants. The standard public course price is $1,695 + GST per participant. Saving $986.67 per participant. The community provides the venue and catering. Garth provides the participant course material.
Potential funding could be obtained through grants, charities, donations, community groups (e.g., churches, Rotary), community fund-raising activities, or from local business and/or larger national business chains that operate within the community. The course could be fully subsidised for the participants or partially subsidised where an individual pays a percentage of the course, so to have an invested interest.
Payment is a one-off payment prior to the date of the course, which is a function of the Community Emotional Wellness Programme Lead. Details of this is provided to the Community Emotional Wellness Programme Lead.
The Next Step
If you are interest in this exciting opportunity to support the Emotional Wellness of your community, please contact Garth to discuss over a coffee.
‘Together, we can make a difference.’ – Garth Castle