Building Bridges

Taking the face of General Practice into the local school environment

About the Program ( Factsheet)

The Building Bridges program involves a local General Practitioner and Health Professional presenting a workshop to Year 10 students at eight high schools in the Riverina focusing on increasing young people’s intention to seek medical help and addressing barriers students have to accessing health services. Building Bridges aims to take the "face" of General Practice and health into the school environments where General Practitioners and other health professionals can be presented as friendly, non-threatening, non-judgmental, caring, and understanding people. The Building Bridges presentation goes for approximately one hour and covers the following topics:

What happens when a young person visits a GP or Health Professional.
Medical confidentiality.
Emotions and feelings that stop young people going to a GP or seeing a Health Professional.
How a GP or Health Professional can help young people.
Accessing a Medicare card and GP billing.Question time - anonymous questions collected from the students prior to the presentation are answered by the GP and Health Professional as part of the presentation.

Schools who have been involved in the program include: