Welcome to Cultivate Psychology- improving wellbeing in farming communities
Promoting psychological wellbeing for
farmers and their communities
Who We Are
Stephanie Schmidt - Clinical Psychologist
Stephanie is a Clinical Psychologist and farmer in the eastern agricultural area of South Australia. She lives with her husband and 2 young sons on their farm at Worlds End. Steph is passionate about developing a resilient rural Australia, supporting individuals and communities not only to grow but to thrive. Steph combines her psychological knowledge together with her lived experience of the challenges of farming life to provide accessible, easy to understand strategies to improve health and wellbeing for farmers and farming families
Learn to Thrive
This seminar provides simple strategies to improve psychological flexibility and wellbeing. Drawing from both evidence-based psychological approaches and her lived experience of farming and rural life, Steph provides an accessible, easy to understand, interactive experience. Participants will learn a basic understanding of the brain and behaviour as well as simple, evidence-based strategies to improve their wellbeing and look out for others. The seminar can either be presented as a brief but interactive 1 hour seminar, or expanded into a more hands on 3 hour workshop where participants will have opportunity to practice and engage with helpful strategies.
Recommendations on where to get further assistance or support through local and online resources can also be provided.
ACTFORAG Pilot Program
Steph is thrilled to be the South Australian winner of the Agrifuture's Rural Women's Award.
Using her Westpac bursary, Steph is developing a program ACTFORAG, Acceptance and Commitment Training Focused on Rural Adveristy and Growth.
This program will involve 3 brief sessions training farmers, farming families and rural communities in psychological skills which promote wellbeing,
ACTFORAG is based on the evidence-based model Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT promotes skills in psychological flexibility, the ability to be present in this moment right now, be aware of challenging thoughts and feelings, be adaptable as the situation dmands, and choose to engage in actions that take us towards our values. Psychological Flexibility has been found to be related to improved mental health, less stress and distress, improved workplace performance and satisfaction - among many others.
Participation in the program will provide participants with practical skills which apply to daily life, which will assist them on the personal, business and community level.
The ACTFORAG pilot program is commencing Thursday 11th June and is supported by Country SA PHN. The pilot is focused on supporting farmers within drought impacted regions of South Australia.