Mr Dempsey invited Constable Care’s Youth Choices to come to my school on Monday and present a play to a number of groups of students that talked about the topic of bullying.

The play was performed at the McCappian theatre by a group of four Youth Choices’ performers aged in their 20’s.

Youth Choices is a group of performers that encourage young people to speak up about problems in their life that affect their mental health and wellbeing. They help kids by putting on different plays that show how to deal with different situations that could harm a young person’s wellbeing.

The play we saw was called 'Isolation'. In my opinion, the Youth Choices performers did an excellent job of presenting this play. In the play, they show the audience situations where the characters are in distress and ask the audience how to help the character work through their problems. They made me think more about how my actions or inactions can hurt people.

I had the opportunity to go on stage and display some supportive strategies that I knew about. I learnt that these were good strategies as the audience and presenters clapped and cheered at the end of my performance. Something new I learnt from the play was the important skill of how to suggest to someone who needs it the process of contacting a helpline.

This presentation was important as it highlighted the problem of bullying and its effects. Everyone who attended the performance should have gained knowledge and strategies about how to deal with bullying. My hope would be that our school will see a reduction in bullying and an increase of students supporting each other.

Harry West, Yr 8