The unsung heroes in our community, dedicated to helping others, tend to fly under the radar, and happily so. Login or signup to continue reading Dr Marilyn June Anderson, of Cessnock, was one of them ..
. until she won a 2024 Australian Mental Health Prize for her outstanding contributions to the promotion, prevention or treatment of mental illness. The group training manager for Lifeline Direct has been named this year's "Community Hero" at an awards ceremony in Sydney.
Dr Anderson is a lifelong advocate for mental health and crisis intervention and has dedicated more than 25 years to Lifeline, 12 of those in Newcastle with Lifeline Hunter. She has, to date, trained more than 40,000 individuals in suicide prevention and crisis intervention - including frontline workers, volunteers and community members - in areas such as suicide prevention, mental health, domestic violence, grief and loss. Through her work, Dr Anderson hopes to make Lifeline a cornerstone of mental health support, especially in rural and regional areas where such services are often limited.
She says she is "driven by the power of community" and the need for people to have the tools to support each other in times of crisis. She views her role as "a calling, not just a career". "I had about 10 careers before Lifeline.
I was very much a mature-age student, I got three degrees and finished my academic journey when I was 60," she told the Newcastle Herald . "I was a student at James Cook University for 20 years -.
