2025 NSW Young Australian of the Year Maddison O’Gradey-Lee

Australian Community Media

Meet Your Australians - 2025 NSW Young Australian of the Year Maddison O’Gradey-Lee. ACM is proud to be media partner for the 2025 Australian of the Year Awards.

Transcript

00:00Growing up, I really struggled with my mental health and had pretty severe anxiety.

00:08I was 12 and going on school camp and all of my friends were so excited to go to the

00:12Great Aussie Bush Camp and I was dreading it.

00:14I was so anxious and I was so afraid.

00:16This teacher came up to me and she shared about her experience with anxiety and she

00:20gave me tips and told me that I wasn't alone in this experience and it was the first time

00:25I'd ever actually heard somebody else talk about their experience with anxiety and the

00:28first time that I felt hope for the future because I was seeing this teacher who was

00:33incredible and had this wonderful life but who also had anxiety.

00:37Having that conversation on the stairs of my high school was really quite a game changer

00:41for me and I went to camp and I had a wonderful time on this camp and I wanted to create that

00:45moment for other young people.

00:47So I started talking to my friends about mental health and, you know, lo and behold other

00:51people were also struggling but everyone was so afraid to say something because there wasn't

00:55education about what mental health was.

00:57So I started running workshops in local high schools around mental health and sharing my

01:02story and sharing the story of others who do have a mental health condition but who

01:05are still able to do these really incredible things in their life.

01:09So I wear multiple hats in the youth mental health space.

01:13The first is as a researcher, I'm currently completing my PhD at the University of New

01:18South Wales and the Black Dog Institute and my research aims to improve the assessment

01:22of mental ill health for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people.

01:27At the moment we don't have appropriate tools that measure mental health or distress which

01:31means governments aren't able to effectively plan or create policies that improve the social

01:36and emotional wellbeing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people.

01:40So my work as a researcher is aiming to improve that and look at how we can improve our cultural

01:45validity in the work that we do as clinicians and as researchers.

01:50I'm also the co-founder of the Origin Global Youth Mental Health Fellowship.

01:54The fellowship aims to empower young people with a lived experience from around the world

01:58to continue to create change in their communities by providing them with access to world class

02:03leaders, workshops and mentoring to support the development of their projects in their

02:07communities whilst also completing a global advocacy project.

02:12As a psychologist and as a researcher I get to work with young people with mental health

02:15conditions and get to see all the beauty and the joy that comes within that and the hope

02:20that there is for young people.

02:22I want to ensure that young people have a space to share their stories safely and freely

02:26to reduce the stigma that surrounds youth mental health.

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