Grant Thornton Foundation: igniting impact with headspace and Special Olympics Australia

Rebecca Archer
Welcome to The Remarkables – Grant Thornton’s podcast that seeks to uncover stories about remarkable people doing incredible things for their community, bettering the world for future generations and inspiring others to do the same.

I’m Rebecca Archer, and today we’re talking with The Grant Thornton Foundation, Special Olympics Australia and headspace. With a core focus on youth mental health and well-being as well as diversity and inclusion, the Grant Thornton Foundation is a chance for the broader business to support local and national charities who are positively impacting their communities.

Today I’m joined by John Picot, Chairperson of the Grant Thornton Foundation; Sean Douglas, Schools & Youth Program Manager at Special Olympics Australia; Jennifer Lobb, Senior Clinical Advisor and Christina Molina, National Clinical Manager, Refuge and Migrant Practice team at headspace.

Welcome everyone – thank you for joining us on the podcast today!

Jennifer Lobb
Great to be here, Rebecca.

Christina Molina
Thanks.

Sean Douglas
Thank you.

Rebecca Archer
Now, before we begin, we really do love to ask our guests what they're reading or listening to or watching at the moment.

Christina Molina
So, hi, I'm Christina from the headspace National Refugee and Market Practice team. At the moment, I'm actually listening to an audiobook called ‘Ikigai’. It really speaks to people living in Japan who are over 100 years old and essentially just giving tips on what we can do now to really make our life a bit longer. So, it's been a very interesting and really good reflection on what we can do for our health overall.

Sean Douglas
I'll go next. My name's Sean from Special Olympics Australia. I'm the National Schools and Youth Manager, and in fitting with my role, I'm currently reading the Harry Potter series to my nine-year-old at bedtime. So just introducing him to the world of Hogwarts and Harry Potter.

Jennifer Lobb
And I'll go next. So, my name's Jennifer Lobb. I'm a Senior Clinical Advisor at headspace National. I have been loving the ‘If Books Could Kill’ podcast, which is a podcast about airport bestsellers, and the cohosts explore a book each episode and look into the evidence base behind the claims that are made, as well as provide their own take on the book. So, I really love the kind of critical lens taken to look at some popular self-help books.

John Picot
And I'll go last. So, John Picot, and I'm the Chairperson of the Grant Thornton Foundation. A book I've just finished reading is ‘Truganini’ by Cassandra Pybus, and it's a biography about an extraordinary person who lived for 47 years in a period from 1829 to 1876.

She was a Tasmanian Aboriginal woman who really, through her own resilience and smarts, survived what was really an apocalypse for those people in Tasmania at the time. When I say she survived to the age of 46, she was purportedly the last Tasmanian Aboriginal alive in 1846. Now, that wasn't entirely true, but that was certainly how it was portrayed. What struck me about her biography is just what a remarkable, resilient person that she was through a time that is unimaginable today.

Rebecca Archer
What a diverse and fantastic group of recommendations there. Thank you so much to each of you for that. My next question is quite a big one, and that is what makes you all so passionate about the social sector. Are there any standout moments that you could maybe highlight? And Christina, we might start with you again.

Christina Molina
I think for me, why I really enjoy working in the social sector is being able to work, particularly with headspace, with young people and families.

I think for us, you know, we all have a young person in us, even though we're a bit older, and I really enjoy advocating for the voices of young people and their families through the work that they do and really making sure that services, particularly mental health and wellbeing services, are accessible to all Australians across the nation.

So, it's a really big passion of mine to really amplify those voices in everything that we do at headspace National. I guess I've got lots of stories in this space, but the ones that really stick to me, or ones that really, I’ll always reflect on, is when young people, especially in the work that I've done in one on one work, be able to say, oh, wow, this place gets it, or you understand. And how can I let my parents know or let my family or community know what's going on for me.

I think that's always something I really enjoy hearing because it tells us that there's something in this young person really drawing on their strengths and the resilience to be able to be brave and share what's going on for them. So, I think those are the stories that really stick with me.

Sean Douglas
I think, very similar to what we just heard, but it's that passion, and for me, it's that passion around sport and physical activity. And I love being able to do that, sharing that passion with young people that don't often get the same opportunities as their mainstream peers.

So being able to manage a program in my position that provides those opportunities, but better yet, be in a position to teach coaches and classroom teachers how to better include students with intellectual disability or autism so they feel more comfortable and more equipped to do more activity with those students is what gets me out of bed in the morning, and I mean, there's always times I reflect on my work and the things I've done, particularly in the opportunities I get to coach in our inclusive sport and schools program – so physically being in the school and working with the young kids and the teachers and it's just that journey that you go on with the students.

So, from the start of a program, there's always a bit of a reluctance. It's generally something new for those students with intellectual disability or autism, there's someone new in their environment that they've got to sort of learn to get accustomed to and learn both ways how we are as people.

So it's being a part of that journey to then at the end of the school term, being able to see their progress, not just in a physical sense in terms of their progression with the physical activity and sport, but just that enjoyment of being active and that enjoyment of being out with their peers and being included in something they sometimes don't get the opportunity to do, given everything else that is in the day to day school environment. So being able to be a part of that journey with those students is always the great warm and fuzzy that I go home with at the end of my day.

Rebecca Archer
And Jennifer, if we could pick up with you next, please.

Jennifer Lobb
I am an occupational therapist. That's my clinical background and so I guess from my training and what made me get into that is wanting to support people to be able to live the life of their choosing in the way of their choosing, right? Occupational therapy is all about helping people to live the life that they choose, and so, working in youth mental health is really about helping young people to live a life that they choose. And I'm really passionate about helping people through what can often be a really confusing and overwhelming time. I mean, especially these days, we live in a really chaotic and busy world with a lot happening, lots of information, lots of identities and hats to try on, and it's just such a privilege to be able to work with people through that period and especially what we know about health outcomes that occur in adolescents and how that can go on to be a predictor of lifetime health outcomes.

If you think about the impact that we can have working with someone when they're younger, meaning that they might be able to have a more fulfilling life or a healthier life in an ongoing way, or maybe that when they have their own children, will be able to raise those children in a healthier space because they're in a healthier space themselves. It's really such a privilege to be able to work in that area.

I also used to work in an early psychosis team in Sydney, and given that today we're going to be talking about international student initiatives, I'm really passionate about doing something in that space, because I used to work in an early psychosis service with lots of international students who had their first episode of psychosis once they'd moved to Australia. There's all these restrictions that are placed on international students in terms of attendance and academic outcomes and how much they can work, and so that really makes it hard to be able to support your health and wellbeing if you have a lot of restrictions and pressures – not even taking into account the kind of cultural language stigma, et cetera, barriers of actually accessing mental health support. So, I'm really glad that we've kind of come together to work in that space as well.

Rebecca Archer
And, John!

John Picot
My story starts back in the early 90s when I was volunteering for an international aid agency, Caritas, and I came across an extraordinary man by the name of Jeffrey Pereira, who was the director of Caritas in Bangladesh and oversaw much of the recovery after Bangladesh was subject to a major typhoon where thousands of people died, and Jeffrey would talk about what development is, and he would use that familiar adage that we all know, know if a man is hungry, give him bread, he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish, he'll be okay.

Well, Jeffrey would say he will not be ok. It's not enough to teach a person to fish. You need to teach them fishing rights, that they're entitled to participate, and to have a place on the riverbank – and that's really stuck with me, and much of what I've heard from my colleagues this afternoon plays strongly into that, because the work that you're doing is really about giving people a sense of they have a right to participate, whether that's as an international student, whether that's a person who has an intellectual disability, it's about the right to participate. So that's my hero.

Rebecca Archer
John, while we've got you there, I wonder if you could explain the goals and objectives of the Grant Thornton Foundation, please.

John Picot
Yeah, certainly. Look, The Foundation grew out of a need from Grand Thornton right across Australia, our six offices in each state other than Tasmania, had a very fragmented approach to its community support, and that fragmented approach meant that there was no strategy, there was no alignment, and really, the application of funds to various organisations was very piecemeal and lacked impact.

So the firm made the decision in 2014 to unify that activity, to launch the Grand Thornton Foundation and establish it through a payroll giving program, which is matched by the firm, and that we would establish National Partnerships that we could support, that would have real impact, and that we could also still maintain each of our state offices with a social responsibility committee that could choose local charities to volunteer with and to participate with and to support financially.

The real focus was around just increasing the level of impact that we could make, and of course, for our individual people, the benefit of having many people donating to the one cause means that the impact that they can play a part in is much greater, particularly given the leverage effect of the company matching the donations. It just means that for every dollar that a person might give, $2 is going to be the direct effect of their donation, but when it's added up with all of their colleagues, it'll be 100 times the impact.

So, it's very much around having greater impact, but maintaining some level of local community and support with the SRCs. The focus that we have, and our objective is really driven by our community. So, we survey our people every three years to ask them, what are the causes that they want us to focus on and support, and the most recent survey was at the end of 2022, and our people told us very clearly, young people's mental health, victims of domestic violence, and always for marginalised young people, inclusivity. So that's the way in which we make these choices.

Our most recent adoption of headspace has been one that resonates particularly strongly with our people, because so many of the people that work in Grant Thornton come through that process of having come to Australia as international students to study and have experienced the challenge of isolation, being separated from their friends, being separated from their families and their normal cultural support network into a different culture, different language, and all of the challenges that go with having to work under a student visa. So that was something that resonated so strongly with our people and was unanimously supported by our directors as being where we wanted to go with our most recent partnership.

Rebecca Archer
Now, Christina and Jennifer. Since Covid-19 we have seen the rise in mental health challenges for young people, particularly around loneliness. I wonder how headspace works with the community and its partnerships on these mental health challenges.

Jennifer Lobb
Yeah, so I might start with that one, and then I'll let Christina speak specifically, maybe, about the initiative that we have going. But, I mean, in general, headspace aims to support every young person in Australia to be mentally healthy and engaged in their communities. So that doesn't just mean Australian residents or citizens, right? It's every young person in Australia.

So, we primarily provide services across our headspace network, which is, you know, they're physical centres, and then we have a whole suite of online offerings and work and study support. We have a whole schools program, but this work is often funded by the Federal Government, and it helps us to provide those key services, but it doesn't necessarily allow us to have the impact in as many communities as we would like to.

So, Partnerships like this one with Grant Thornton allow us to be able to extend our support to vulnerable communities, like international students in this case, and focus on providing resources or support that young people have told us is important. So, projects like the International Student Experience Project really help us to extend our reach to communities that maybe our core funding doesn't allow us to be able to do.

Christina Molina
Thanks, Jen. So as part of the grants from Grant Thornton Foundation, the Refugee and Migrant Practice Team, we actually made a proposal that really, we felt really aligned to the Grant Thornton Foundation values and priority areas.

So here at headspace national, under my team, we see international students as quite a vulnerable cohort of young people and even adults in Australia. Like what John and Jen's already said, that they experience lots of difficulties when they come to Australia, starting from navigating many health systems that might be really foreign to them, right through to financial costs of living, and even really importantly, the stigma surrounding early help seeking or getting support around not just their wellbeing, but mental health.

So, we know this, and we know that international students really need some support and guidance into what is available, who they can reach out to, and how they can get support. So, part of the international student Experience project that we're doing is developing resources in co design or working with international students to really identify what would they like to start with. With headspace being able to reach many communities across Australia, we hope the resources will also have a national reach, and these resources can be anything from information sessions right through to group chats, even right through to having translated resources.

One of the most exciting parts of the project is we're also employing an intern to help support the development and co design process and really focusing on and giving opportunities for an international student to also apply. Really excitingly, we're actually in recruitment phase, and we've had over 330 applicants across Australia who've put their hand up and said, yeah, this sounds like a great project, we'd love to be involved.

So, we're very excited to start doing the interviews and really identifying some really great opportunities, not just to connect with a possible internship person, but also the networks and the reach that we can have with the resources that we're developing here at Headspace national with the support from Grant Thornton Foundation.

Rebecca Archer
What an amazing opportunity for that intern. How exciting. That's great news. Moving on to Sean now, the Grant Thornton foundation has supported Special Olympics school programs for a little while now. Can you talk us through the current partnership and how Special Olympics drives local impact?

Sean Douglas
So, Special Olympics Australia is a national sporting organisation for people with intellectual disability and autism, and part of the global inclusive sport movement that is Special Olympics. And so, we provide our athletes with intellectual disability and autism with the opportunity to participate and compete in weekly training and state and national competitions, right through to selection to the Australian team that competes at the World Games every four years, similar to the Olympic cycle.

So, at the heart of that movement is advocating for a more inclusive society, using sport and physical activity as the vehicle to demonstrate what's possible, and then using that platform to do things like get into schools and break down barriers between students and make school environments more inclusive of students with intellectual disability. And it's that work we do, thanks to Grant Thornton, in the education space, that fosters inclusion more broadly in society, again, using sport as the vehicle.

So, whether it's creating more online learning courses for the general community to go on and learn about intellectual disability, learn about working with people with autism, and how to include people in their business, in their sporting club, in their local, you know, that's the sort of stuff we do with Grant Thornton, is that awareness and education. So, as I said, online learning courses and resources on our online learning platform, in particular, Inclusive Sport Academy. So, I'd encourage people listening to go onto the Inclusive Sport Academy platform and have a look through what we have online and help to raise your awareness and understanding of people with intellectual disability, but it's also thanks to Grant Thornton that we have the capacity to get out and deliver face to face workshops to teachers and to coaches working for our national sporting organisations.

So being able to get out face to face and work with those sectors to increase their capacity and ability to break down those barriers in the school or sporting field and really foster that inclusive environment where they are. So, it's increasing that capacity and level of knowledge and awareness to the broader community of inclusion and of people with intellectual disability and autism. And it's thanks to the great support from Grant Thornton that we've been able to engage – I think we're close to 20,000 students with intellectual disability through our inclusive sport and schools program so, since we've been working with Grant Thornton. So really a great milestone number that we're due to reach. And again, it's thanks to some of the great support from Grant Thornton that we're able to increase our resources and training within the inclusive sport and schools program and share that program with more and more schools nationally, and thereby reach more and more students and just create more of that awareness and inclusion, leaving a playground environment, a more inclusive space than when we found it, so that students – mainstream and those neurodivergent students – can interact more and understand each other better and thereby create more inclusive school communities and communities in general. So that is the bottom line for Special Olympics Australia and the work with Grant Thornton.

Rebecca Archer 
And, John, can I ask you to maybe speak to the relationship in terms of this particular partnership?

John Picot
Yeah, absolutely. So we have been partnering with Special Olympics Australia now since 2018. It started very slowly with running some mini Olympics in some of our offices, and really merged into this three year program of support for the Inclusive Sports Program.

I think what's attractive for us particularly is the reach that we have through this program, and Sean mentioned the fact that there's some 20,000 students that have been touched, and I think from a conversation we had with Pierre Comis, the CEO of Special Olympics, those 19,800 students were touched just in the last twelve months across New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, and lighter touch in WA and SA.

And so, for us, it's really around the ability to extend what we do and the impact of what we do through Special Olympics Australia that's made it such an attractive relationship and one that we clearly want to keep going into the future.

Rebecca Archer
I wonder if you can give us some sort of insight into how the community can better support the work that your charities are doing and the people that they help.

Jennifer Lobb
So the way that people in the community can better support headspace's work, I mean, you can fundraise for headspace. We do workplace giving. You can host an individual fundraiser. You can sign up to support headspace when you're doing a fun run, for example. So, there's ways that you can raise money for headspace. We're also involved in this year's push up challenge in June.

So, workplaces or individuals can join the push up challenge and do pushups to raise money for youth mental health and in this case, headspace. So, yeah, those are a few ways that people could support us. I mean, financially, or if you're a business, you can obviously partner with headspace in a meaningful way, and in lots of cases, partnerships end up funding specific initiatives like this one, or in other cases.

Sometimes they've funded a service stream at headspace, like the peer group chats in e-headspace, for example. So, if you're a business or an individual, there are lots of ways you can kind of financially support the work of headspace. But the cost of living at the moment is a big concern, so if you want to support the work of headspace in a non-financial way, there are a few other ways you can be involved.

So, on a personal level, you can learn more about youth mental health and wellbeing and consider challenging maybe some internalised stigmas that you have. If you're an adult who wants to support young people in your community, it's really useful for you to have an understanding of what's going on in their lives. Be interested in the young people in your life; ask them how they are. We know that the first people young people turn to are often people that they know it's not a service as the first point of call. So, if you are looking to support youth mental health, you can learn more about it. Chat to young people, be a good, kind listening ear, help to support them. Maybe sometimes that's to a service, maybe sometimes that's in a practical way in their life.

And you can also be a role model for mental health and wellbeing practices. So, if you're going through a tough time, you can get your own counseling, and that's something that can be really powerful. If you're chatting to a young person about speaking to a mental health professional and they trust you, sometimes it can be really powerful to say, when I was going through a tough time, I went and saw a mental health clinician and it was so helpful for me.

Or as a business or employer, if you employ lots of young people, there are lots of things you can do to think about supporting their mental health at work, like Safe Work Australia or the body for your state often have a lot of guidance around how to make sure young people are supported at work, because we know that young workers are more vulnerable to things like bullying, harassment or exploitation. So, I mean, those are just a few ways, financial and non-financial, that you can support the work of headspace.

But I guess if you're thinking about new initiatives to support health and wellbeing, I think what often happens is that people really want to see change and they get really excited and they try to enact something really quickly, and the problem is that initiatives that are really effective tend to take a bit of time, especially community based initiatives that involve creating a sense of trust and understanding between whichever organisation is trying to enact the initiative and the community you're trying to impact on.

Rebecca Archer
And Sean, I'm sure there's a lot there that you would agree with. Is there anything else that you wanted to add specifically for your organisation?

Sean Douglas
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, clearly, as a charitable organisation, financial support is always valued. We're currently looking for sponsors, especially connected to our 2026 National Games and the current funding we have to provide. Our Inclusive Support in Schools Program across the country is coming to an end this year on a broader, larger scale. So, we would love some partners to help us extend our schoolwork and increase the scale and reach of our schools programming. Otherwise, we're always looking for more personal ways we can go about our fundraising.

We've started a few community fundraising initiatives that often are more personal and meaningful from an employee engagement perspective. So, for instance, we've started a Community Champions Campaign with the staff at IGA, where staff set a fitness goal and raised money for Special Olympics Australia while keeping healthy and active.

We also have, for example, our Splash Corporate Swim Challenge, which is another great way to get involved for any corporates that might be listening. And so, our Splash Corporate Swim challenges involve swimming alongside some of our Special Olympics athletes as well as Olympians, and the corporate teams swim together and raise funds for Special Olympics Australia in a competitive yet fun social environment.

And I'd say again, it was discussed earlier about cost of living pressures for people. So broadly, we're a volunteer-based organisation. So, time is always a remarkable asset that people can give because we're always so short on time anyway, but we are a volunteer-based organisation. So, around the country there's thousands of volunteers that work with our athletes as coaches and as club volunteers, committee members, et cetera. So, if you have some time, go down to your local special Olympics club. You can find that on our website, a quick Google search, and get in touch with the local club, find out what they're in need of. Are there any events coming up that they might need a hand with? So that time is always a valuable asset that anybody can give.

And beyond that, it's getting onto our Online Learning Academy, complete an online course, or to read some of the information resources that we've got available so you can learn more about people with intellectual disability and autism, and what inclusion means and what inclusive practices you might be able to do day to day in your local community to make your local environment a more inclusive place for people with intellectual disability.

Rebecca Archer
And Sean, while we've got you on the roll there, I wonder if you can talk to the idea of what sorts of stigmas and misconceptions that you're aiming to minimise by partnering with organisations like Grant Thornton?

Sean Douglas
People with intellectual disability and autism. It's often referred to as the hidden disability. Unlike physical disabilities, you can't always tell when someone has an intellectual disability. So, for us, it's always advocating inclusion and diversity within your local community, and it's always advocating for what people with intellectual disability can do, not what they can't. So that's probably been the long-lasting stigma around look, it's too hard, there's too many things I need to do and think of, too many adjustments that need to be made to work with someone with an intellectual disability. It's all too difficult.

But what we're trying to show through the Special Olympics movement and through getting into schools and working in the health departments, et cetera, is just how actually easy it is to be more inclusive, to be more mindful of those around you in a general case, and that providing a platform or an opportunity for people with intellectual disability to be a part of your community has so many benefits.

That's why we've got a module on our Inclusive Sport Academy platform called Unified Leadership, which showcases the benefits to businesses and organisations about what can occur and the outcomes of including people with intellectual disability in your business and giving them a voice to be heard and work with in the same way you would any other member of your business, and the ramifications of doing that and what that can lead for your corporation and for your business.

So, again, it's rehashing the awareness and the advocacy of people with intellectual disability and giving them the platform to showcase what they can do.

Rebecca Archer
And, Christina, what about the stigmas that you might be looking to minimise or break down through the Grant Thornton partnership?

Christina Molina
For us, one of the, I guess, experiences, particularly from people coming from culturally diverse backgrounds, is the stigma around mental health and what that looks like within the broader Australian context. We know that for many culturally diverse, multicultural communities, that there is language attached to mental health that might not be translatable or doesn't translate directly into their own languages.

So our hope is that the partnership with Grant Thornton Foundation is to really help develop, again, resources that can speak, and, I guess, cut across the jargon that sometimes we might use in wellbeing or describing mental health, and also really wanting to focus that on the strengths of culture and how that can actually be seen as something that not just international students, but all young people can lean into as they go through their mental health journey.

Rebecca Archer
Now, another question that goes out to all of you. I'm curious about the vision for the future of your organisations. What can you tell me about that? Maybe. Let's start with John.

John Picot
The vision for The Foundation is really driven by our Grant Thornton community, and so, our strategy is always informed by the input we get from our three yearly survey, but without any doubt, we would love to see the impact that we can have socially within the community for people who are experiencing some form of marginalisation; we'd love to see that reach extended, and the best way we can do that is by growing the participation of our people. So, currently, around 20 per cent of our people participate through workplace giving. If we could elevate that to 40 per cent or 50 per cent, then the reach that we would have and the impact that we could have in the community would be exponentially greater. So, I think from a vision point of view, that's the vision for our Directors, but we will always, always be driven by the causes that our community want us to focus on.

Jennifer Lobb
I mean, in terms of headspace, we really would love to be able to deliver effective youth mental health services for all young people in Australia that are kind of accessible and available to meet young people where they're at, and we have done a lot of development since our inception. I mean, headspace started with just a single headspace centre, and now we've got, like, I don't know, 156 or something across Australia.

We've got e-headspace, our phone counseling service; we've got online communities where we do group chats with peer moderators or mental health clinicians. We've got services in schools; we've got work and study services, so we've obviously expanded a lot, but ideally, we would like our services to be really accessible and coordinated.

If a young person goes into a headspace center and does an assessment with someone there, and then they access e-headspace online, ideally, young people's information would be in a centralized place so that they don't have to repeat anything. Ideally, young people could access services more readily in rural and remote communities without necessarily having to rely on a dodgy Internet connection.

So, in terms of our broad vision, we would like services to be kind of available and accessible, and that means working on having resources and clinical skills and supports available for people from a diverse cultural background as well, but I suppose in the shorter term, we're looking really at developing our relationships with a few key communities and building the trust within those communities.

We have our Refugee and Migrant and First Nations practice teams working on helping us to work maybe a bit better in that space. I personally am working on a project with headspace partnerships around improving workplace mental health for young people. So, we're just kind of looking at those spaces where maybe young people aren't hugely supported or maybe there isn't a great deal of coordinated resources to support young people.

Rebecca Archer
Fantastic. Thank you and Sean…

Sean Douglas
On the horizon for us – so, we've just finished, as I mentioned earlier, our four year World Games cycle. So, our athletes are starting afresh. We had our World Games in Berlin last year, so all our athletes are looking to get back into that training cycle and build up, getting ready to compete at the highest level they can in four years’ time and in between.

From my perspective, within the school space, one thing we are really passionate about at the moment is our Unified Champion Schools program. So, the Unified Champion Schools is basically an opportunity for students with and without intellectual disability and autism to participate in activities together. It's creating a more inclusive, purposeful environment within schools by making sure that students with and without intellectual disability have those opportunities to interact together, not just in a formal classroom space, but also in the playgrounds and out in the sporting fields in particular, and it's a three-pronged approach.

So, we use unified physical activity, unified physical education, unified sport, just whatever the opportunity is within the school to get students together and doing physical activity also. The second prong is youth leadership. So, providing opportunities again, students with and without to be together, to be in positions of leadership within the school environment and learn from each other that way and give them a level of responsibility for the Unified Champions Program in and of itself.

And thirdly, it's about creating an opportunity or creating opportunities for the whole school community to be together and learn about that unified concept, learn about inclusion within school and their school community and the broader community they live in. And so, we're just starting to sort of roll that out. We've adopted the model from the US, from Special Olympics International, and we're just trying to make sure it works and fits within our Australian education system, and so that's really our brand-new schools program that we're looking to really cement and really get into as many schools as possible, and off the back of that is our Youth Leadership Program.

So again, students or young people from 15 to 25, with and without intellectual disability being a part of our Youth Leadership Program. So, learning leadership skills and then just as a byproduct, creating an opportunity for, again, that awareness and learning for both people with and without intellectual disability to learn from each other and create that awareness around, again, what people with intellectual disability can do as opposed to what limits them, what they can't do.

So, the exciting thing is that's fresh and brand new. We've done some research, and we have an idea of what we're looking at and what we'd like to create. But I think going back to the earlier point around how people might like to get involved with us, if you're between 15 and 25 and are interested in the youth leadership program, you can reach out to me at the school's team. Likewise, if you're a business or an organisation looking to get involved, then we can definitely have a chat and see how we can work with you to potentially be mentors or provide content for our leadership modules as we move forward in developing our Youth Leadership Program. So definitely some things are on the horizon to look forward to as we continue to expand and promote awareness and inclusion within the school and education space.

Rebecca Archer
Fabulous. Thank you very much for that, Sean. And look, just to finish off, I wonder if you can share the most remarkable advice that you have each received. Christina, let's go to you first.

Christina Molina
The most remarkable advice – it's actually a quote that I always go back to. It's actually written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the quote is, ‘for what it's worth, it's never too late to be whoever you want to be.’ So, I always hold that really close to my heart and see it as an opportunity to be able to adapt to change at whatever point you are in life and that things do change and there's amazing opportunities to be able to do that.

Rebecca Archer
John…

John Picot
Yeah, gosh, I had to think about this, and it really goes back to the mid-80s when I had the opportunity as a young manager of an importing and wholesaling business to sit next to the retiring Chief Executive of Shell Oil in New Zealand, and he generously said to me, John, if there's one piece of advice I can give you, it's never leave the table having negotiated a deal or a transaction or arrangement with another organisation or person without believing you can go back to that same person, that same table on equal terms, and it was really about mutuality of respect, and I think that's probably been one of the most powerful pieces of mentoring and advice I've received.

Rebecca Archer
Jennifer…

Jennifer Lobb
So, mine maybe speaks a lot more towards my personality and maybe shouldn't be taken as general advice, but probably one of the best pieces of advice I got given as a young clinician was to slow down because you'll never have today again – because I tend to get very excited about the future and about doing lots of things and working clinically with someone, thinking about all the things we're going to do together, and so for me, it was really useful for someone to say, slow down, you'll never have today again.

Rebecca Archer
And Sean…

Sean Douglas
Probably it goes back to a time when I was connecting with local businesses and industry in a role that was about educating secondary students in career pathways. So, it was about connecting schools to local industries to actually showcase what's possible when you leave school, and I remember sitting with one of the business leaders in a regional community, and we'd finished doing, remarkably, a podcast conversation that was going to be broadcast back to schools, and he just sort of mentioned that it was great to have an authentic conversation and to have a conversation with someone and share their passions.

So, his advice was along the lines of, if you can share your passion with others, that's the most authentic thing you can do with other people.

Rebecca Archer
Such wise words from each of you. Thank you so much and you've been so generous with your time today. That's greatly appreciated. I wonder if we are keen to continue to follow the work of the Grant Thornton Foundation, Special Olympics and headspace. How can people get in touch with you? What's the best option for that? Let's start with you again, Sean.

Sean Douglas
It's Special Olympics Australia, so we're on all the socials, so, Facebook and LinkedIn, if you just have a quick search for Special Olympics Australia, should have no problem finding us there. So, a great way to again learn about intellectual disability and what our organisation and community are doing and how you can be involved is getting onto those socials. And I'll probably do a last pitch for hopping onto our Inclusive Sport Academy and really learning some new things to help you in your day-to-day life and how to be a more inclusive person in your community.

Rebecca Archer
Jennifer and Christina…

Jennifer Lobb
We are also on all of the socials as headspaceau, so Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. You can go to our website, headspace.org.au for more information. Or if you're a young person or someone who is not aged twelve to 25, but supporting a young person, you can access clinical support through our website as well.

Rebecca Archer
And John, the easiest way is just to go to the Grand Thornton website, which is grantthorntonaustralia.com.au and put in search ‘foundation’ and that will find us and our reports and our annual reports and how people can support The Foundation.

Rebecca Archer
If you liked this podcast and would like to hear more remarkable stories, you can find, like and subscribe to The Remarkables podcast by Grant Thornton Australia on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Leave us a review or ideas on who you’d like to hear from next. I’m Rebecca Archer – thank you for listening.