The towns of Ceduna, Cummins, Kimba, and Kangaroo Island will receive 10 years of financial support for their mental health initiatives.  

The funding will come from Our Town, a Fay Fuller Foundation program supporting mental health initiatives. The foundation works with The Australian Centre for Social Innovation and Clear Horizon to bring long-term support to chosen towns in South Australia.

The chosen towns will receive 10 years of funding and support to reclaim the mental health and wellbeing of their regions.  

Our Town is an initiative that aims to build the capabilities of regional towns in South Australia to develop and test community-based responses to mental health. Designed by regional communities for regional communities, Our Town strives to bring everyone’s voice to the table, particularly those who are not always heard.  

Of the shortlisted towns and regions, five were then required to develop a proposal for how they’d use long term funding from the Fay Fuller Foundation.  

“The final proposals submitted were of high quality and have potential for huge impact in the communities. The strength of the collective plans led to the Fay Fuller Foundation Board committing additional resources to the initiative. These additional resources include full funding for an additional town – Kangaroo Island – for the duration of the ten-year partnership, which brings the total number of fully funded towns up to four, in addition to seed funding for two other towns – Berri and Mid Murray – to begin implementing parts of their plan as we seek commitments from other potential partners,” the Fay Fuller Foundation said in a statement.   

This brings the Fay Fuller Foundation’s total commitment to $15 million to fund community-determined responses to mental health and wellbeing challenges in regional South Australia.   

“The Fay Fuller Foundation is so proud of all the towns. The strength of the plans submitted is testament to the knowledge and understanding held within communities, and their ability to determine approaches to the big challenges of mental health and wellbeing that are tailored to their communities. All we provided was the time and space for them to be able to do so,” said Niall Fay, CEO of the Fay Fuller Foundation.