One Red Tree Resource Centre was founded by clinical psychologist Carly Mckinnis and educator Tammie Meehan in January 2022, and is a psychology clinic and training centre based in Ararat.
Carly, a local rural psychologist, was becoming overwhelmed by the volume of people asking for appointments and Tammie, in her role as an assistant principal was feeling frustrated at being unable to direct families in need to mental health support, as families were facing closed books or extremely long waiting lists.
Both Carly and Tammie knew the problem was caused by a lack of psychologists available in our grampians region, so they formed a partnership with Federation University in Ballarat to provide placements for their Master of Clinical Psychology students in schools surrounding Ararat, including rural schools.
Since January, One Red Tree have placed 16 provisional psychologists for semester long placements for 2 days per week. Schools have included the rural schools of Willaura PS, Lake Bolac College, Moyston PS and Concongella PS, along with other Stawell and Ararat primary, secondary and specialist schools. Most importantly, the centre is providing support for trainee psychologists, but it is also providing mental health intervention for school-aged students, with 150 receiving therapy so far in 2022. Exciting for schools, students and their families!
One Red Tree is a Not-for-Profit Charity organisation, fully self-funded and is hosting the first fundraising event to support their School Outreach Program. The fundraising event is planned to be a big extravaganza on Nov 12th at the Ararat Town Hall, with an excellent line up of local performers and catering by Sarah’s Kitchen.
Tickets can be booked through: www.ararattownhall.com.au
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