Please join us for the Australia Day Awards Ceremony where we recognise the contribution that individuals, community groups and organisations make in our region. Followed by light refreshments. 

This year the awards will be presented by our Australia Day Ambassador, Dr Tahnee Bridson, Founder of Hand-n-Hand Peer Support.

Following the suicide of a well-known doctor in 2016, Dr Tahnee Bridson learned that many of her friends and colleagues were also suffering in silence – too scared to speak up out of shame, fear and stigma. It was then that she decided her future would be dedicated to mental health.

With the encouragement of some high-profile health leaders, Tahnee founded Hand-n-Hand Peer Support in March 2020, to assist healthcare workers who were experiencing well being or mental health difficulties.

What began as a small WhatsApp group chat quickly became a collective of more than 2,000 healthcare workers on social media. Tahnee’s work for Hand-n-Hand is done on a volunteer basis, in addition to her full-time job as a Psychiatry Registrar.  

Tahnee was also named Queensland Young Australian of the Year 2022.