The Nulsen Youth Patron program was one of the four available service opportunities for year ten students at All Saints’ College, one that has helped me to personally develop my leadership and public speaking skills, as well as allowing me to develop connections with, and learn more about people living with complex disabilities.

One of the major benefits and important aspect of the program was the leadership sessions, and workshops aimed at fostering youth leadership, and self- development. This was achieved through talks with Gavin Bain, an amazing person who has over 20 years in senior roles at creative agencies, is a Board member of the Cancer Council WA, and the Advertising Institute of Australia, as well as a variety of other amazing achievements. He talked to us about the important skills of a leader, in particular, vulnerability. Through is sessions, we learned to embrace our vulnerability, and use it to connect with people, an important skill that many people don’t have.

Another important part of the Nulsen Youth Patron program was the public speaking workshops we had with Margo, another amazing person who helped us to greatly improve our public speaking skills in only two sessions. She talked to us about the how, and what of speaking, and even though what you say is important, how you present what you have to say is more important. Another important part of public speaking she taught us was body posture, and to stand with your legs, waist width apart and arms above your elbow height. This alone helped us to project our voices more, and sound more confident. The last main thing she taught us was a way to structure any speeches we write, by having three key points, and then three sub points per key point. This allowed us to better remember what we had to say, and improvise and add to it while doing this, allowing us to sound more confident and present the ‘what’ better.

The final part of the Nulsen Youth Patron program which has really helped me to foster connections with people living with complex disabilities and build a broader sense of community awareness around disability issues is the fortnightly house visits we have. This allowed us to directly visit the homes and talk to, read to and play games with the residents. It really helped us to connect with this community, as over the course of the program, we realised that we didn’t have to act cautiously around the residents, we just need to treat them like we treat everyone else, as they are people, just like us. The house visits were also really eye opening as we saw a wide range of different disabilities, from non- verbal residents who were bound to wheelchairs, and people that would help their carers cook, play games, and have conversations with.

Overall, the Nulsen Youth Patron experience was a really amazing, eye opening and insightful experience that has helped me to learn life- skills that I will benefit from for the rest of my life.