Tiarnee Schafer is a proud Kalkadunga (Kalkadoon) Kintja from Mt Isa QLD and is currently living, working and studying on Gadigal land in Sydney. After finishing high school, Tiarnee started to notice the high rates of suicide in her community and saw the effects it had on her community and family. She wanted to help her mob and thought the best way to do that would be to study Psychology, which saw her move to Brisbane and attend Griffith University. After completing her Bachelor’s degree, Tiarnee completed her honours thesis in psychology that is on help-seeking behaviours, suicide stigma and literacy and has continued on to study a Master of Suicidology. She is now working towards becoming a Clinical Psychologist specifically working with mob.
Tiarnee’s lived experiences have made her passionate about improving the Social and Emotional Wellbeing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. She wants to be able to make a difference by gaining a better understanding of best practice in suicide prevention particularly from a youth-focused perspective and rural and remote viewpoint. But also through decolonising ways of working and embedding Aboriginal ways of know, being and doing into her work to best support mob in a culturally safe way. She is joining us to talk about a fantastic new app for young Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander youth. Tiarnee yarns up about suicide in community and how iBobbly has helped Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander youth.
The iBobbly Social and Emotional Wellbeing app from Black Dog Institute is a self-help app that helps Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 years and over to build good social and emotional wellbeing. Completely private and confidential, it helps by showing you ways to manage your thoughts and feelings, as well as how to decide what is important in your life. It includes: quick check-ins to give you feedback on how you’re going, teaches you how to manage troubling thoughts and feelings, monitors your progress & provides help and support options.