在今年 7 月， Mindspace Consulting 荣获 2024年Melbourne Lord Mayor Small Business Innovation Award Finalist 👉 墨尔本市长颁奖，一起见证Mindspace的非凡成长
9月2日， the City of Melbourne 在 Melbourne News 上发布了一条名为“Diverse mental health support recognised for business innovation“，深度报道了 Mindspace 的创业历程，以下为报道全文：
Dr Queenie Wu arrived in Melbourne as an international student 20 years ago without friends, family – or the convenience of modern technologies – and embarked on a psychology degree that would change her life and the lives of countless other international students like her.
Queenie remembers those first overwhelming days in Melbourne well.
“There was no internet back then and none of the services and support that are now available to international students,” Queenie said.
“I had to venture out to Chinatown to buy an international call card to contact my parents back in China and tell them I’d arrived safely.”
It was one of many obstacles Queenie would encounter as an international student, navigating not only the complex world of study in a new country but also finding a community, a part-time job, working out the health system and more.
"It was a very difficult but formative time and gave me a real heart for the international student experience,” she said.
Queenie graduating from her PhD in psychology surrounded by family
When Queenie graduated as a psychologist, she landed a range of jobs – first in forensic psychology, then supporting asylum seekers, and finally at national youth mental health foundation, Headspace, where the idea for Mindspace Consulting was born.
“I was on my lunchbreak one day when I overheard a group of Chinese students talking about how stressed they felt.
“They were lonely, and finding it hard to live independently for the first time while managing course work and study in another language.
“I’d been there, and my heart broke for them, remembering those early days of my own time here in Melbourne.”
It’s a feeling that haunted Queenie as she returned to work that day, and she started questioning why she hadn’t met more diverse clients in her role as a psychologist.
“I knew no one was immune to mental health challenges and it planted a seed. Why were there so few Asian clients seeking support? Why didn’t I seek support when I was so overwhelmed in those first few years?”
It soon dawned on Queenie that there was a crippling stigma surrounding mental health in international students, particularly for those in her own culture.
“I think sometimes people feel like if they’re struggling there’s something wrong with them, that they’re a burden, but actually there’s support out there and it’s important to reach out and get it early,” Queenie said.
A counselling room at the Mindspace office in Melbourne
In January of 2019, Queenie took a leap of faith and opened Mindspace – a psychology practice dedicated to supporting international students and Melbourne’s multicultural community through the spectrum of challenges that come with establishing yourself in a new city.
“It was kind of impulsive, I had no idea how hard it was going to be to start a business, but I just went blindly into it driven by this passion to help improve mental health support for people like me.
“I started writing articles about myself, my experience, my background, psychology and tried to break down some of those stigmas.
“I wanted people to know it’s normal to be stressed, to have difficulty adjusting and you’re not a burden or bother if you need help.”
Her words resonated and today the practice has grown to open two more offices in Adelaide and Brisbane, with the practitioner team doubling in the past 18 months.
Queenie Wu and Cathy Yang
Managing Partner and Head of Marketing, Cathy Yang came on board early and is proud of the progress they’ve made together.
“Nowadays about 90 per cent of our clients have a Chinese background and we’re not just supporting them through that early adjustment phase, we’re also supporting them through relationship troubles, traumas, grief and loss – from their early 20s into their 30s and beyond,” Cathy said.
“It feels special to have built a community and legacy here. Just the other day, we were at an expo and so many of our past clients came up to say hello and thank us for the support we’d provided them in a tough time.”
Over the years, Queenie, Cathy and the team have also supported international psychology students with internships to help them gain clinical experience and diversify the profile of psychology practitioners.
One of the provisional psychologists employed at Mindspace was part of the program and will graduate soon.
“We desperately need a multicultural workforce to provide tailored support, and while many Chinese students apply for a Master of Psychology, it’s very competitive and they don’t always know where to look for support and experience to complement their academic skills,” Queenie said.
“Whether or not these students end up working at Mindspace is not an issue, I don’t see it as competition, I just see it as growing the cause,” Cathy said.
It’s this mindset that saw the practice recognised as a finalist in the Lord Mayor’s Small Business Innovation Award.
As the only psychology practice to receive an Innovation Award in the history of the awards, Queenie and Cathy hope it inspires other practices to go out there and do something different – to see the opportunity in challenge.
That was certainly the case for Mindspace when, just a year after opening, the global pandemic hit and decimated and devastated their client base.
Not only did feelings of isolation and loneliness skyrocket in the community, but there was also a spike in racism directed at the Asian community.
“The Chinese Museum approached us to join them in the We are strong within campaign, which promoted resilience and gave participants advice on how to deal with racism and also the feelings of shame that it creates,” Queenie said.
“People were so scared and couldn’t talk about these horrible experiences. It caught so many of them by surprise and they would just freeze.”
Seeing the need for support in the community, Mindspace created a range of online resources and ran free online support groups.
“The pandemic opened our service community right up. It was no longer just about supporting students in Melbourne but those who had returned home to places right across the world,” Cathy said.
“It made us more open to new ideas – like MindInsight – our soon-to-be-launched online assessment tool that offers clients an overview of mental health, emotional distress, resilience and stress coping mechanisms, as well as ways to gain insights into their wellbeing through comprehensive self-assessment.
“We’re incredibly proud of all we’ve achieved in five short years, and were so thankful to be recognised by the City of Melbourne.”
