Shamsiya Hussainpoor
Belgrave’s Mountain Men in conjunction with Mums of the Hills held a booked-out event for parents on Wednesday 19 June.
Mountain Men Inc. established in 2018 is a social and support group in Melbourne’s Dandenong Ranges that creates opportunities for men to establish meaningful connections with one another.
The popular event presented best-selling author and host of the ‘Popculture Parenting’ podcast, paediatrician Dr Billy Garvey who presented, ‘Raising Resilient Kids.’
Mountain Men’s Secretary Heath Pawley said the event was about guiding parents through expert advise on how to raise kids more resiliently.
“It’s about bringing everyone together, and making that presentation available for everyone,” he said.
“If anyone needed a bit of support with their kids in that resilient space and wanted to learn a bit more could come along, connect, and get resources – because we’re very aware of the waiting list for a lot of occupational therapists, children’s psychologists and developmental paediatricians.”
Mountain Men went from eight volunteers to a membership base into the hundreds, with a wide variety of programs and events running each week, including information seminars on men’s health, games nights, fitness/running clubs, lawn bowls evenings, rotating working bees on members properties, Dads, and kids’ days, and more.
The Public Health Care Network funded the organisation at the start of the year for storm recovery and the remainder of this grant funded the popular evening for parents to come together and connect.
“We had a bush program specifically for dads and kids in term one and two this year, with that course, and with the condensed timeline that we had – we found we had remaining funds that could do a lot of fantastic things for dads to educate and support them on how they could help their kids who might be struggling through different changes – especially through the changing climates and everything that’s actually happened through the storm,” Mr Pawley said.
The event was open to all parents.
Mr Pawley said for events like this, it usually takes a lot of time advertising and spreading the word out at least a month prior.
But within less than a month to go, the advertise went out and within less than 12 hours, the event was booked out.
“Around 80 people signed up, we ended up with 90 people including a few of our board members and affiliates around the event,” he said.
“We also had a waiting list of community support who wanted to join us virtually, we gave them links to join and listen online and send them recording for those that couldn’t make it in person.”
“The thing that stood out the most was just the demand for this type of event which I absolutely loved.”
Mr Pawley said the event didn’t feel one-sided at all, the attendees were a good mix of mothers, fathers, male caregivers, and female caregivers.
Private consultations can be skyrocketing for many parents, attending events like this is a ‘bang for the buck,’
“People who are having significant challenges with their kids, they’re going to still need those one-on-one consultations but there’s a lot of waitlist involved and can be quite expensive,” he said.
“The ability to get a lot of people in one room with professional presenters goes a lot way – they just might need a little bit of support or a point in the right direction.”
“We very rarely put a ticket price on any of our events, unless it’s just covering the cost for the actual event, and wherever we can, we try and make things free and available to everyone.”
Mr Pawley encourages parents to get involved in their events and programs, to find out how, visit: mountainmen.org.au/get-involved
