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ReachOut Australia Identity Project

Jurisdiction
New South Wales
Year
2021
Outcomes
Resilience

ReachOut Australia's Identity Project aimed to reduce the impact of psychosocial risk factors for extremism by bolstering resilience and wellbeing in young people (aged 14-25 years). The Identity Project comprised a social media campaign, online resources on ReachOut (relating to tough times at home, school, and relationships), and peer support activations on the ReachOut Online Community forum. The program aimed to validate feelings of powerlessness, reduce loneliness, promote positive attitudes towards self-help and social support, increase self-awareness and knowledge of self-help. The ultimate goal was of the Identity Project was to impact positive identity and self-worth by increasing social connectedness, self-compassion and self-efficacy.

Key takeaways

The evaluation indicates:

  • The program reached and engaged large numbers of people in NSW
  • The social media campaign reached 739,077 people and was engaged with 109,587 times
  • Around one in five young people in NSW recalled seeing the campaign
  • Almost all young people who saw the campaign and engaged with the online resources experienced the desired short and medium-term outcomes, including validation, decreased isolation, improved attitudes towards self-help, improved attitudes towards social support, feeling understood and heard, increased self-awareness, increased knowledge of self-help, belonging and connectedness, increased self-compassion, improved self-efficacy and personal agency
  • Participants endorsed the long-term impacts of the program theory, with 87.8 per cent experiencing an improvement in their sense of identity and 92.7 per cent endorsing improvements in self-worth.

Relevant reports