What We Do
Threads: A School-Based Program for Disengaged Young People
Threads is a trauma-informed, holistic, and place-based school elective designed to re-engage young people who face complex life challenges, including mental health struggles, domestic and family violence, neurodivergence, and suicidal thoughts.
The program is co-designed with young people and co-directed with Upturned Tasmania, ensuring it reflects youth voices and real-world expertise. Threads works alongside students and school staff to create shared goals and provides a safe, supportive space where young people can reconnect with their passions, explore their strengths, and find purpose.
Why Threads Works
Led by our Founder and Producer, Laura Johnson, Tier 1 provides the overall vision, leadership, and direction for THEIRS. This level guides the organisation’s purpose, strategic growth, partnerships, advocacy, and community impact. Laura works closely with all tiers to ensure THEIRS remains grounded in lived experience, youth leadership, and trauma-informed practice while continuing to create meaningful change across Tasmania.
Partnerships & Community Engagement
What Makes Threads Different
Evaluation & Accreditation
Looking Ahead
THEIRS Workplace & Organisational Training Program
Building Mentally Healthy Workplaces Through Connection, Compassion & Practical Skills
Our training program is designed for workforces and organisations across all sectors — from schools and community groups to construction sites, offices, and even Parliament. Built by people with lived experience, co-designed with young people and communities, and grounded in trauma-informed practice, this program is highly flexible and adaptable to meet the needs of your team, regardless of industry or age group.
Through five interactive modules, participants learn how to recognise signs of struggle, respond safely, support colleagues, and look after their own wellbeing in sustainable ways. The training combines storytelling, practical tools, reflective activities, and real-life scenarios to ensure every participant walks away feeling more confident, capable, and connected.
While we cover the essentials of mental health, wellbeing, and suicide prevention, our program also acts as a gateway to broader support and training opportunities.
For example:
- Workplaces or schools wanting specialised suicide prevention training can be directly linked to accredited providers.
- Teams seeking Mental Health First Aid training can access certified trainers across the state.
- Organisations can be connected to events, workshops, and programs that align with their specific wellbeing goals.
This approach ensures organisations aren’t just completing a standalone session — they gain direct access to ongoing supports, networks, and practical pathways for embedding mental health strategies long-term.
What the Training Covers
Module 1 — Understanding Mental Health, Suicide & the Realities People Face
Module 2 — Recognising the Signs Someone Might Be Struggling
Module 3 — Cups & Safe People: Sustainable Wellbeing & Capacity
This module focuses on self-care and resilience through practical metaphors.
Participants learn to:
- Recognise their limits
- Replenish energy (“fill their cup”)
- Build healthy habits
- Create support networks
The “Safe People” activity helps everyone identify trusted individuals they can reach out to showing that support is relational, not just personal.
Module 4 — How to Support a Friend or Colleague
Participants gain practical skills to approach someone who might be struggling. They learn how to:
- Reach out safely and privately
- Have compassionate, non-judgmental conversations
- Listen in a way that helps people feel understood
- Respond when someone discloses distress
- Guide a person toward professional or organisational supports
The module demonstrates how organisations can link directly to broader services when specialised support is needed.
Module 5 — Reflections & Backpacks: Understanding What People Carry
This reflective activity uses backpacks as a metaphor for the visible and invisible burdens people carry daily. Participants explore:
- How little we know about someone else’s load
- The importance of compassion over assumptions
- Checking in as a simple, powerful act of care
Why Organisations Choose This Program
- For workforces and organisations of all types — from schools to construction sites, offices to Parliament
- Flexible and adaptable to meet your team’s specific context and needs
- Trauma-informed, evidence-informed & lived-experience led
- Practical tools teams can use immediately
- Supports mentally healthy workplace and organisational standards
- Builds culture, trust, and stronger connections
- Delivered in a warm, safe, non-clinical, and engaging way
- Provides direct pathways to specialised services, additional training, and events
Delivery Options
Around the Table
At THEIRS, we believe the people most impacted by mental health and suicide prevention challenges should have a meaningful role in shaping the solutions. Young people and communities should not simply be consulted after decisions have been made; they should be active contributors to the conversations, ideas and changes that influence their lives.
One of the reasons THEIRS was formed was because we identified a significant gap within the mental health and wellbeing sector. Young people were often spoken about, but there were limited opportunities for them to be genuinely heard, valued and involved in shaping the future of mental health and suicide prevention. We wanted to help change this by creating a platform where young people could share their experiences, identify gaps, challenge existing approaches and work alongside communities, services and decision makers to create meaningful change.
Mess Fest
Life can be messy, but your mental health doesn’t have to be!
Join us for an unforgettable 5 km fun run/walk packed with colour, creativity, and a little chaos. Get ready to get muddy, painted, slimed, and foamed as you tackle a SAS-style bootcamp course designed for fun, laughter, and a whole lot of messy action.
This is more than just a run, it’s a celebration of community, creativity, and wellbeing, brought together through collaboration with local organisations and young people from all across Tasmania. Whether you’re racing with friends, family, or flying solo, there’s something for everyone.
Before the run, immerse yourself in the festival atmosphere with:
- Live artists and bands performing throughout the day
- Delicious offerings from food vendors
- Festival rides
- A range of wellbeing activities, including yoga, stress ball making, animal therapy, and painting with the Blue Tree Project
- Craft activities, face painting, and more
Fun for all ages continues with exciting lucky door prizes, and a best-dressed competition, with prizes for under 10s, under 25s, and over 25s.
This event is the perfect mix of adventure, creativity, and connection, celebrating mental health in a fun, inclusive, and interactive way.
Come ready to get messy, make memories, and support a positive, community-focused message around mental health.
Mess Fest
T.E.R.R.A. Tasmania
Trauma-Informed Emergency Response & Recovery Alliance
T.E.R.R.A. Tasmania exists to ensure mental health and suicide prevention are embedded at every stage of emergency response and disaster recovery.
Currently, Tasmania lacks a coordinated, trauma-informed mental health response during crises. T.E.R.R.A. fills this gap by building structured, place-based teams capable of rapid mobilisation, coordinated communication, and evidence-informed action.
“Terra” means land — reflecting a commitment to grounding crisis response in place, community, and stabilisation.
Purpose of T.E.R.R.A. Tasmania
T.E.R.R.A. Tasmania ensures mental health and suicide prevention are embedded at every stage of emergency response and disaster recovery across the state. Tasmania currently does not have a coordinated module to provide immediate, trauma-informed mental health support during crises. T.E.R.R.A. fills this gap by building structured, trauma-informed regional teams capable of rapid mobilisation, coordinated communication, and evidence-based action.
The purpose of T.E.R.R.A. is to:
- Establish regional, place-based emergency response teams that coordinate services and provide immediate support during crises, ensuring responses are trauma-informed, efficient, and locally tailored.
- Embed mental health and suicide prevention into all disaster recovery and crisis responses, recognising these needs intersect with every other service area, from emergency responders to community wellbeing initiatives.
- Build a statewide network connecting organisations, service providers, clinical supports, peak bodies, community leaders, emergency responders, and lived-experience advocates to ensure collaboration, information sharing, and coordinated action.
- Provide recovery support grounded in connection, community, and long-term wellbeing, reducing suicide risk, mitigating trauma, and preventing service fragmentation.
The word “Terra” means land, reflecting our commitment to grounding disaster response in place, community connection, and stabilisation. Every crisis is approached with the principle that Tasmania must have a coordinated, compassionate, trauma-informed response that prioritises mental health alongside emergency needs.
Regional Emergency Response Teams
Each region will have an Emergency Response Action Group, consisting of:
- Head Organiser: Oversees statewide coordination, ensures timely activation, and manages communication with government, peak bodies, and clinical supports.
- Leaders: Responsible for regional coordination, team mobilisation, and operational oversight during crises.
- Members: Trained responders who deploy on-the-ground during emergencies, providing mental health and psychosocial support.
- Champions: Broader community services, clinical supports, peak bodies, and other relevant organisations who provide additional expertise and capacity.
- Regional coverage includes:
- North-West, King Island, Flinders, West Coast
- Deloraine, Tamar, North including East Coast
- South
As a result of the TERRA team, we want to create a network of services.
Statewide Service Network Directory
The directory includes:
- Mental health and suicide prevention supports
- Youth and older person services
- AOD and gambling services
- Shelters and safe havens
- Disability supports and equipment
- Food relief and financial assistance
- Sexual and family violence services
- Carers, interpreters, cultural services
- Any other relevant services
This directory ensures services are coordinated, less siloed, and accessible, reducing waitlists, duplication, and overburdened systems.
Supporting Your Event
At THEIRS, we’re committed to supporting events that foster connection, understanding, and positive mental health outcomes. We work closely with schools, workplaces, community groups, and organisations to ensure every event is safe, inclusive, and trauma-informed. Our support can include practical guidance during the planning stages, providing resources and materials, delivering workshops or talks, and offering on-the-day assistance to create a welcoming and supportive environment for all participants.
We understand that every event is unique, so we take the time to tailor our support to your specific needs, whether that’s helping to design engaging activities, providing expert speakers, or ensuring mental health considerations are central to your event. Our goal is to help you deliver an event that not only runs smoothly but also leaves a lasting positive impact on participants and the wider community.
To explore how THEIRS can support your upcoming event, please email us with your event details, including date, location, audience, and objectives, at info.theirs.event@gmail.com. Our team will review your request and collaborate with you to create a plan that aligns with your vision and the well-being of all involved.
Laura’s Talks or Invite Laura Johnson OAM to Speak
Mental health is a conversation that affects us all, yet many people feel unsure about how to ask for help, support others, or build resilience in the face of life’s challenges. Laura Johnson OAM, founder of THEIRS (Talk, Hear & Help, Educate, Inform, Refer and Support), is a passionate advocate for mental health awareness and lived experience sharing. Through her talks, Laura creates safe, engaging, and inspiring spaces where people can reflect, learn, and feel empowered to make positive changes in their own lives and communities.
Laura’s presentations are not only informative—they are personally grounded, practical, and relatable. By drawing on her own lived experience with mental health challenges and recovery, she demonstrates how resilience, connection, and asking for help can transform lives.
What to Expect
Laura’s talks typically run for 45 minutes and are designed to be flexible and tailored to the needs of each audience. They are suitable for:
- Community groups looking to raise awareness and start meaningful conversations
- Workplaces and organisations seeking to build mentally healthy cultures
- Service providers, health professionals, and not-for-profits wanting to understand lived experience perspectives
- Public forums or community events aiming to inspire change and connection
During the session, attendees can expect to:
- Hear a personal story of challenge, resilience, and hope – Laura shares her journey in a way that is honest but uplifting, helping audiences understand the realities of mental health while highlighting the possibilities of recovery and growth.
- Explore practical strategies for wellbeing – Attendees gain actionable insights about self-care, coping mechanisms, and how to support others through difficult times.
- Learn about the power of lived experience – Laura explains how sharing stories can reduce stigma, encourage empathy, and create stronger, more connected communities.
- Engage with the mission of THEIRS – Participants learn how youth-led initiatives and community programs can make a tangible difference in mental health support and awareness.
- Feel inspired and empowered – The talk is designed to leave attendees with motivation, confidence, and practical takeaways to implement in their personal lives, workplaces, or communities.
Laura’s approach combines storytelling, practical tools, and reflection, making each talk meaningful and impactful.
Optional Q&A
Safety and Wellbeing
Event Costs and Travel
- Travel – Depending on the location, a contribution toward travel expenses may be requested.
- Fees – Talks are offered at a varied cost depending on circumstances and requirements. Donations to support THEIRS’ programs welcome but not required.
Booking Process
To book a talk, interested groups complete a short request form. This helps us:
- Confirm Laura’s availability
- Tailor the presentation to the audience’s specific needs
- Ensure all logistical and safety requirements are considered
Each request is reviewed individually, and confirmation will be provided as soon as possible.
Mind in Motion
Move. Create. Connect.
Mind in Motion is a new THEIRS program coming to the Tamar Valley and Launceston region in 2027.
Mind in Motion is about creating spaces where people can connect, have fun, try something new and look after their mental health without it feeling like a formal mental health program.
There will be opportunities to move, create, connect and learn, with activities designed to suit different interests, abilities and comfort levels.
Whether you want to get active, make something, meet new people, hear from someone with lived experience, or simply spend some time around other people, there will be a place for you.
Where did Mind in Motion come from?
Mind in Motion started through ABC Heywire Tamar Valley, where THEIRS worked alongside young people from the Tamar Valley to explore what they wanted to see happening in their community.
The conversations focused on connection, wellbeing and what could make a real difference for young people locally.
One thing became clear: young people wanted more opportunities to get together, try new things, meet people and feel connected, without everything having to be centred around a crisis or a formal mental health service.
That conversation became the starting point for Mind in Motion.
Rather than creating another program and telling young people what they need, we wanted to build something from the ideas, experiences and interests of the young people and community who would actually use it.
What started as an idea through ABC Heywire Tamar Valley is now becoming a new THEIRS program, bringing people together through movement, creativity, connection and mental health and wellbeing.
Mind in Motion is about creating something with the community, not just for the community.
What will Mind in Motion look like?
Mind in Motion will create free, welcoming spaces where participants can choose how they want to get involved.
The program will have two streams running alongside each other:
MOVE
Sport, movement and active experiences for people who want to get moving, try something new or simply have some fun.
CREATE
Quieter and creative activities for those who might prefer making, creating, learning or connecting in a different way.
Both streams will include opportunities to connect with others, learn about mental health and wellbeing, and hear from people with lived experience.
There will also be free food and drinks, guest speakers, local activities and opportunities to connect with community organisations and services.
You don’t have to be sporty.
You don’t have to be creative.
You don’t have to know anyone.
And you definitely don’t have to have everything figured out.
Just come as you are.
Why Mind in Motion?
At THEIRS, we believe connection matters.
Sometimes the things that support our mental health aren’t complicated. They can be having somewhere to go, someone to talk to, something to look forward to, or simply feeling like you belong.
Mind in Motion is about creating more of those opportunities.
It is about bringing people together before they reach crisis, building connections across the community and making conversations about mental health a normal part of everyday life.
We want to create spaces where people can build friendships, discover new interests, learn something new and feel part of their community.
Most importantly, Mind in Motion is about creating something with the community, not just for the community.
Mind in Motion is currently being developed with young people and community partners, with the first activities planned for 2027 across the Tamar Valley and Launceston region.
We are looking for young people, volunteers, community organisations, businesses and activity providers who want to help bring Mind in Motion to life.
Whether you have an activity you’d love to share, want to volunteer, have an idea for the program or simply want to be involved, we’d love to hear from you.
The Heart of the Program
At its core, this training is about people. Creating workplaces and organisations where individuals feel safe, supported, and valued. Where checking in becomes normal. Where mental health conversations happen without fear. Where teams look out for one another.
When organisations get mental health right, everything changes: culture, performance, retention, wellbeing, and community impact.
Feedback from Talks
Request Form
Grounded in community.
Led by lived experience.
THEIRS is built on youth leadership, trauma-informed practice, and genuine connection — working alongside communities to create safer, more supportive pathways to mental health and wellbeing.
THE MONTHLY MIX: SOCIAL SHUFFLE
Rebuilding Connection, One Saturday at a Time
Connection = Prevention.
The Monthly Mix: Social Shuffle is a free, intergenerational community connection initiative created by THEIRS to bring people together, reduce social isolation and build stronger, more connected communities.
Currently being delivered in Burnie, Tasmania, Social Shuffle creates a regular space where young people, adults, families and older community members can come together, take part in activities, share food, have a chat and simply spend time with other people.
Because sometimes connection starts with something as simple as showing up.
Where did Social Shuffle come from?
Social Shuffle was co-designed with young people involved in ABC Takeover Burnie.
Through those conversations, young people identified something that can often be overlooked: loneliness isn’t something that belongs to one particular age group.
It can affect young people, parents, adults and older people. It can happen when someone is new to a community, when friendships change, when people retire, when life gets difficult, or simply when someone doesn’t have enough opportunities to connect with others.
And often, it happens quietly.
The Monthly Mix was created in response to that conversation.
Rather than waiting until someone is already experiencing significant distress or relying solely on crisis and clinical services, Social Shuffle creates regular opportunities for connection before crisis.
Because we believe connection is prevention.
What is a Social Shuffle?
Social Shuffle is a free, two-hour community gathering held each month.
Every session includes a shared activity designed to make connecting with others easier, followed by time to relax, have some food and let conversations happen naturally.
There is no pressure to come with a group of friends.
There is no requirement to talk about mental health.
There is simply a welcoming space where people can come along, participate as much or as little as they like, and meet others.
The program is intentionally non-clinical and non-service based. It is about creating the conditions for connection rather than trying to prescribe what connection should look like.
Why intergenerational?
We don’t believe connection should happen in separate age groups.
One of the things that makes Social Shuffle different is that it intentionally brings generations together.
Young people get opportunities to connect with people outside their usual social circles. Adults and older community members can build new relationships and share their experiences. Families can participate together.
It creates opportunities for people who might not otherwise cross paths to meet, talk, laugh and learn from one another.
And that matters.
Strong communities aren’t built through people living alongside one another. They’re built through people actually knowing one another.
More than a one-off event
Social Shuffle isn’t designed to be something that happens once and disappears.
The monthly rhythm is intentional.
We want people to know that Social Shuffle will be there next month, and the month after that.
That consistency creates the opportunity for relationships to develop over time.
Someone might come along for the first time not knowing anyone. They might return the following month and recognise a familiar face. Eventually, that familiar face can become someone they chat with, sit with or look forward to seeing.
That is how connection grows.
Our goal isn’t simply to count how many people attend an event.
It’s to create the conditions for people to keep coming back, build relationships and develop a stronger sense of belonging within their community.
We've already started
Social Shuffle is no longer just an idea.
We have already delivered several community sessions in Burnie, bringing young people, adults and older community members together to participate, chat and connect.
These sessions have shown us the power of creating a consistent, welcoming space for people to come together.
They have also reinforced the need for initiatives like Social Shuffle, with interest already emerging from other communities wanting to explore how the model could work in their own areas.
Place-based expansion
Social Shuffle is designed to grow, but it isn’t a one-size-fits-all program.
Every community is different.
The people, strengths, needs, existing services, local organisations, available spaces and opportunities for connection will look different from one place to another.
That is why Social Shuffle is place based.
The core of the program remains the same: regular connection, intergenerational engagement, accessible activities and a welcoming environment.
But each community helps shape what Social Shuffle looks like locally.
Our first expansion is to Wynyard, where we are working towards establishing a local Social Shuffle alongside the community.
From there, we want to continue listening to communities across Tasmania and exploring where Social Shuffle could be valuable next.
If you think your community could benefit from Social Shuffle, we want to hear from you.
You don’t need to have the whole idea worked out.
Tell us where you are, what you’re seeing in your community and why you think more opportunities for connection are needed.
We’ll work with local communities to explore what Social Shuffle could look like in that place.
Connection before crisis
At THEIRS, we believe suicide prevention and mental health promotion cannot only happen when someone reaches crisis.
Prevention also happens in the everyday moments.
It’s having somewhere to go.