On Thursday 26 August, our Year 12 students participated in a virtual seminar led by Tom Boyd, a former AFL Western Bulldogs footballer. Tom bravely shared his experience struggling with depression, anxiety and insomnia, and provided our students with helpful mental health tips on overcoming the challenges of COVID-19.
Thank you to our Parents’ Association for making this presentation possible and supporting our students’ wellbeing. We also acknowledge our College Captains Robbie Miller, Steven Tran and Keelan Corcoran for the role they played in organising the seminar.
“I didn’t feel comfortable being represented as just an AFL footballer rather than as a person. And I think that that was really difficult for me to grapple with over a long period of time,” Boyd said in an interview.
Since Boyd’s retirement in 2019, he has obtained his degree in Business Management and is a mental health advocate for HeadtoHelp.
“If you can teach someone a lesson that you took 10 years too long to learn, when they’re 15 or 16, you know, you can potentially save them a whole heap of suffering, and I think that’s really, really the integral part of what I try and do.”