week 10 Term 1, 2024
Last week girls in Years 5, 6, and 7 had the privilege of engaging with Ruby Riethmuller, founder and director of Womn-Kind, who shared insights on fostering friendships not only with others but also with ourselves. Ruby led the students through various activities and exercises, encouraging them to reflect on what they like about their peers, themselves and the cherished individuals in their lives. Ruby even set a challenge for the students to reach out to these special people later in the day to express their appreciation.
On Thursday night, Ruby hosted a seminar for parents, carers, educators and community leaders in the College’s TLA. They learnt about:
Insights into the current context of youth mental health in Australia
Knowledge on tools, resources, services and products that support the wellbeing of young people
Advice on raising teenagers in a way that optimises their wellbeing, potential, happiness and success.
Ways that teenagers want to be supported by the adults in their lives.
A 30-minute question and answer session followed where parents shared, laughed and learnt together. A special thanks to Ruby for sharing her knowledge and expertise on supporting teenagers to thrive.
Ruby is the Founder and Director of Womn-Kind, which is a youth-mental health organisation on a mission to bridge the gap in effective wellbeing education and support for pre-teen and adolescent girls.
Ruby's team have supported over 15,000 young people through delivering school wellbeing workshops and via the Womn-Kind App, which is a first-of-its-kind social wellness app. The Womn-Kind philosophy focuses around three core pillars - wellbeing, leadership and belonging - and through their services, Womn-Kind hope to support, empower, inspire and teach young people ways to optimse their wellbeing and mental health.
Having grown up on a farm in the Riverina, Ruby is particularly passionate about ensuring that young people who live in regional, rural and remote locations have the same opportunity to access quality, effective and engaging mental health support as their metropolitan peers and continues to advocate for youth mental health reform. Ruby has been recognised for her commitment to youth mental health and advocacy by being named a Future Women Rural Scholarship recipient, shortlisted for the Young Australian of the Year and nominated for the NSW Young Woman of the Year.
