How to Thrive

Currently mainstream mental health services that do not prioritise early intervention, proactive or preventative care. At the same time the system is buckling under the weight of demand, and this is before the pandemic. There are simply not enough clinicians to meet demand and mild to moderate symptoms are left untreated even when people make the decision to seek help.

The film explores whether providing positive psychology and wellbeing science will help when people are experiencing suboptimal mental health.

Our film shows that addressing challenges with these optimistic approaches before they become disorders and addressing disorders before they become critical vastly improves mental health outcomes and life trajectory as well as alleviates cost and systemic issues in delivering public health services.

Our vision is to uncover the science of happiness 
& wellbeing and offer these tools and strategies to people experiencing mental health challenges. Our project aims to show the world that happiness is a learnable skill; that the science of wellbeing can be clinically applied regardless of where people are on the mental health continuum.

- To normalise mental health struggle and shed light on science based wellbeing solutions.
- To demonstrate that wellbeing is a learnt skill.
- To make wellbeing literacy well understood and universally practised.
- To inspire hope, transformation and engagement in better mental health practices.
- To complement and evolve mental health service delivery models to include positive psychology and wellbeing interventions.

The world is increasingly becoming a more anxious, polarised and deficit focused place; and whilst this thinking has it's place, we want to demonstrate a broader picture of how things could be. Based on solid research, we want to demonstrate how to build a culture of thriving; even in the toughest of environments, proving that we can all learn from these approaches for our families, friends, schools, workplaces and perhaps even in our Government discourse.

For the participants, this will be a personal and heartfelt journey. Having access to the world's best science on wellbeing, they will connect us to the impact of the positive psychology theory, practise, tools and interventions.

An impact campaign will provide resources to the community, workplaces, schools and community groups to build better systems for wellbeing and connect audiences to the How to Thrive Movement.

As a part of our impact strategy, we will be building a measurement App to engage viewers in daily or weekly activity that will boost their wellbeing, based on the latest research science. This work will be done in collaboration with Melbourne University.

The World’s Greatest Researchers
We have interviewed and engaged with a growing number of the world’s leading researchers who have agreed to contribute their expertise including; James Pawelski (Positive Psychology), Kim Cameron (Positive Leadership), Ryan Niemiec (Character Strengths), Michael Steger (Meaning & Purpose), Robert Vallerand (Passion), Lindsey Godwin (Implementer of Appreciative Inquiry), Helen Street (Environmental Context to Wellbeing),

World’s Best Practise
We profile workplaces that have led the way in wellbeing, learnt about their journey and the impact their approaches have had on individuals & their organisations and how these approaches create tangible systemic, quality, interpersonal, cultural and financial benefit to organisations.

Who benefits?
Whilst the documentary looks at 10 human stories of struggle, we aim to reframe wellbeing strategies to the broader community to create individual wellbeing as well as provide approaches all workplaces can put into practice. These solutions will also be presented in a way that all of us can benefit from, and in doing so, help homes, schools, workplaces and Governments operate with wellbeing front of mind.

1. Wellbeing will be measured for the organisation and individuals involved in the intervention. Results will be compared to a control group under strict academic research conditions.
2. With each intervention, the documentary will measure the social, cultural, performance and financial indicators to demonstrate efficacy beyond wellbeing.
3. The project will also measure the performance of the film and it's viewership reach as an indicator of success
4. The impact campaign will also be measured in terms of it's reach and engagement with community, workplaces, schools and institutions via screenings, resource downloads, social & tradition media engagement.
5. We will also be monitoring change in public policy, public health and patient outcomes as a measure of success.