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New education initiative to aid lawyers’ mental health concerns
A new education initiative has been launched which aims to provide the legal profession with a forum to help acknowledge, address and manage stressors more effectively.
Emma Musgrave
Source: facebook.com/AnneRichesCSP/
Unisearch’s inaugural webinar series will be hosted by former barrister and legal academic, Anne Riches, who works as a speaker on mental health for The Black Dog Institute.
“The initiative recognises the findings, and supports the report, ‘Courting the Blues: Attitudes towards depression in Australian law students and legal practitioners’, whereby lawyers often fail to identify or admit mental health issues, making the profession more susceptible to psychological problems; which can be exacerbated by the adversarial nature of the legal profession, excessive workloads and overall nature of the work involved,” Unisearch said.
“To this point, the study notes that a culture of competitiveness, combative environments, fear of failure, pessimism, disillusionment and perfectionism are common traits and triggers for mental health issues.”
“This is often compounded by the perception that high levels or stress, or depression, may be a sign of weakness and to one’s disadvantage.”
John Arneil, co-director knowledge exchange at Unisearch, said the new initiative encourages lawyers to start the conversation on mental health.
“It’s widely accepted that depression and other psychological conditions are comparatively high among the legal profession, yet lawyers are often reluctant to seek help for mental health issues. We hope that this pilot campaign will help start conversations, provide support for our legal community and contribute toward the greater movement of mental health acceptance,” Mr Arneil said.
“Our goal is that the webinar provides a forum that helps foster support, encourages openness, builds awareness and ultimately helps practitioners manage mental health more effectively; individually, and as an industry.”
Emma Musgrave
Emma Musgrave (née Ryan) is the managing editor, professional services at Momentum Media.
Emma has worked for Momentum Media since 2015, including five years spent as the editor of the company's legal brand - Lawyers Weekly. Throughout her time at Momentum, she has been responsible for breaking some of the biggest stories in corporate Australia. In addition, she has produced exclusive multimedia and event content related to the company's respective brands and audiences.
Prior to joining Momentum Media, Emma worked in breakfast radio, delivering news to the Central West region of NSW, before taking on a radio journalist role at Southern Cross Austereo, based in Townsville, North Queensland.
She holds a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) degree from Charles Sturt University.
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