Military and Emergency Services Health Australia (MESHA) is a profit-for-purpose research, training and programs centre that supports the mental health and wellbeing of current and former Australian military members, emergency service personnel and their families.

Read the full story by MESHA, who are a partner for the Frontline Mental Health Conference 2025, put on by the Australian & New Zealand Mental Health Association.

We conduct co-designed and impact-driven research in priority areas of unmet need and embed lived experience in the design and delivery of our training and programs to ensure authentic and sustainable wellbeing outcomes for our service communities.

MESHA proudly works in unison with many organisations to advance the health and wellbeing of our service personnel and their families.

We offer a range of evidence-based programs to support service personnel and their families with the transition to civilian life, understanding identity, improving mental health, overcoming injuries and more.

Some of our programs include:

StoryRight and MindRight

Changing roles, transitioning out of service or retiring can be daunting for service personnel. MESHA offers two flagship programs, MindRight and StoryRight, aimed at supporting service members through this transition both personally and professionally.

MindRight is a one-day workshop focused on making choices and decisions around your future, including your own expectations of yourself, goals, identity in and out of uniform, the values and strengths you can harness from your career, and clarifying your sense of purpose.

StoryRight is also a one-day workshop focused on how you can translate your skills and experience into opportunities for promotion or employment, either within or outside of military or emergency services.

Importantly, both programs offer insights from service personnel who have successfully made similar transitions, providing invaluable firsthand experiences, challenges, and lessons learned.

GEARS Program

MESHA runs a practical skills-led intervention called GEARS (Group Emotional and Relationship Skills) to help service personnel with chronic stress, distress, trauma and mental health problems.

It is a 12-week program (two hours a week) designed by a military psychiatrist with service culture embedded. You will learn how your service identity and culture influences your thinking. You will learn to develop positive, healthy coping skills for distressing feelings; become more aware of your emotions; and build resilience, confidence and relationship skills for home and work. This program gets great results for an improved quality of life!

For more information on our programs, please visit our website: www.mesha.org.au/programs-and-resources

Services:

Cultural Awareness training

MESHA offers a comprehensive, full day training program that supports organisations, health care providers and individual civilians working alongside service personnel.

This course aims to enhance understanding of service member’s structure, culture, values and identity, ultimately improving therapeutic alliance, engagement, retention, and overall success. This training has been co-developed by academic staff and lived experience co-workers, aligned to validated models of military veteran and family's cultural competency.

Workshop content can be tailored to your audience and can be customised to include military or emergency services personnel.

Enquiries for all programs can be made to MESHA on programs@mesha.org.au or (08) 7002 0880. Also see MESHA’s website: www.mesha.org.au

Research

MESHA is a leader in driving revolutionary research and patient care initiatives that helps current and former serving military members and emergency service personnel and their families.

We do this by undertaking and funding research projects into service-related mental health conditions, culturally informed interventions, Art Therapy, families of service personnel and more.

MESHA is committed to providing evidence-based research funding which fits and is directed by the needs of service personnel and their families. Below are some of these research projects.

Australian-first inquiry to support service families and peers after suicide

MESHA’s Senior Research Officer Dr Henry Bowen completed an environmental scan in 2024 highlighting a lack of accessible services within Australia for families and peers faced with the unimaginable tragedy of losing a loved one of work mate to suicide within military and emergency services.

This detailed examination details the hard truths that families and colleagues receive little to no support.

Dr Bowen points out a lack of published research in Australia around this topic, called postvention, which is the support given to families and colleagues who lose a loved one to suicide.

On the cusp of the environmental scan, Dr Bowen launched a new study in May 2024 called Support After First Responder Suicide (SAFeRS).

This study hopes to learn more about the barriers and supporters of accessing services and support after the suicide death of a first responder in Australia for service families and peers, as well as inform specific guidelines for support services so they have a better understanding of how to help them during such a difficult time.

“The SAFeRS study will allow us to speak directly to the families and co-workers who have been impacted by a first responder suicide and amplify their voices for what they need,” Dr Bowen said.

This study is actively recruiting participants to share their experiences, closing end of March 2025.

Click here to participate in the study and click here for more information about the environmental scan.

VR helping reduce stress and anxiety for veterans

MESHA is proud to have supported an innovative program to reduce stress and anxiety for veterans currently be trialled at the Jamie Larcombe Centre’s (JLC) Veteran Mental Health Precinct in Adelaide.

The Virtual Reality (VR) Occupational Therapy Program uses a VR headset to immerse veteran inpatients in virtual simulations that focus on mindfulness exploration, distraction and motivation, while promoting relaxation.

Celeste Armstrong, Occupational Therapist at the JLC and lead on the VR project, said that initial trials already showed there was an 8-12% decrease in anxiety symptoms reports after one session.

“This project is important in engaging technology in therapies that we already know are beneficial, to see how we can continue to improvement,” Celeste said.

MESHA is proud to have been part of evaluating the project. For more information, click here.

Parental PTSD impact on service children

MESHA’s Program Director Dr Karen May led a PhD into the complex nature of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and how it impacts children of military and first responders.

Conducted through The University of Adelaide, Dr May’s study was the first in the world to examine the experiences of children aged nine to 17 living with a military or first responder parent with PTSD.

Dr May said the findings are some of the first to explicitly show how intergenerational trauma is passed on in service families and the different ways it can affect the children which you can view here.

The final study of Dr May’s PhD, which is an international first, is a wellbeing program for children and parents.

To find out more about MESHA’s research projects, visit MESHA's website www.mesha.org.au

MESHA are a partner for the Frontline Mental Health Conference 2025, put on by the Australian & New Zealand Mental Health Association.