A decade ago, the couple were living in Sydney \u2013 Scott a business executive who also operated a farm, Florence running her own consulting business \u2013 when their attention turned to Australia\u2019s growing mental health crisis. The headlines were familiar: mental health was on the decline, with certain demographics \u2013 particularly young people \u2013 disproportionately affected.<\/p>\n
But instead of being consumed by the frustration and helplessness of it all, the couple decided to act. They quit their jobs, sold the family farm, and, without a return date, embarked on a road trip around Australia with the aim of speaking to as many people as possible about mental health. They travelled in a refurbished expedition truck, towing a coffee machine, which they lovingly named \u2018Sam\u2019 after the Lord of the Rings character, the brave and loyal Samwise Gamgee. And with that, the Sam Project was born.<\/p>\n
In the beginning, the aims of the Sam Project were seemingly quite vague. But as Scott explains, that was precisely the point.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really just wanted to figure out why? What was going on in people\u2019s lives that were contributing to poor mental health?,\u201d Scott says.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery dollar, every campaign, every conversation in the system was about pulling people out of the river. It\u2019s like that old saying \u2013 it seemed nobody was going back upstream to find out why they kept falling in.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we thought what if we just went and listened? What if we asked people \u2013 not what their symptoms were, but what their lives were actually like?\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a simple idea, but one that also raised a deeper and more personal question: what drives someone to step away from a stable life and take on a problem so often viewed as too difficult to solve? <\/p>\n
The Harrods met in 2012 at a wine tasting event in Sydney. At the time, Scott was a business executive who also operated a farm, while Florence, originally from France, had established her own consulting businesses within the real estate industry, trained as a yoga instructor, and also volunteered her time working with the elderly.<\/p>\n
Both decisions to operate the farm and move into yoga were shaped by difficult personal circumstances: Scott had become a single father, and Florence had survived a severe medical episode with septicaemia. With these shared experiences, the couple were united by similar qualities: resilience, initiative and based on their own experience, a genuine desire to help people. They married in 2014 and two years later, the Sam Project began.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t take much convincing for them to commit to their self-funded mental health mission. But there was one aspect of the broader crisis that stood out to them as both overlooked and urgently in need of attention: prevention, rather than treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when we found that out, there was not even a second thought,\u201d Scott says. \u201cThis is what we have to go and fix.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe literally quit our jobs and sold everything we own to fund this, because integrity was everything. If we were going to help people, we had to demonstrate that. Our level of commitment had to be unquestioned.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple partnered with the Black Dog Institute, through which they received training and resources to support their work. Equipped with an understanding of what they describe as the four pillars of mental health \u2013 education, nutrition, exercise and community \u2013 they began travelling across the country, covering thousands of kilometres, with a particular focus on regional and remote Australia.<\/p>\n
Their approach was intentionally simple \u2013 they would stop, make coffee and start conversations.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople were curious,\u201d Scott says of their early days on the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019d see the truck and the Sam Project sign and wander over. What is the Sam Project? And from that one question, conversations would just flow. We never pushed them. We never steered them. We just made space and let people talk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alongside their mobile coffee set up \u2013 which they describe as an \u201congoing open conversation\u201d \u2013 the Harrods also hosted workshops in schools, community halls, and any space where people were willing to gather. These sessions, often built around Q&A, quickly became central to the evolution of their work, with the Harrods delivering four sessions tailored to specific audiences \u2014 general community members, parents of adolescents, adolescents themselves, and prospective and new parents \u2014 each shaped by community feedback and the latest research.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat a prospective parent needs to understand about brain development looks nothing like what a teenager needs to hear about their own rapidly changing brain, and that distinction has always been built in,\u201d Scott says. <\/p>\n
And despite their extensive travel through regional communities across the country, there was something about Tasmania that made them want to stay.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came to Tassie twice with the Sam Project, and the second time we were so in love with it we knew we couldn\u2019t leave,\u201d Scott says.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo-and-a-half to three years into living this nomadic life in a truck, we\u2019d never planned to settle anywhere. But something just felt right.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was something about the people. We knew it was the right place to pursue our work.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2019, the couple bought land in the south-east town of Little Swanport, about an hour-and-a-half\u2019s drive from Hobart, where when they\u2019re not on the road, they live with a flock of rescued lambs. <\/p>\n
Against this background, Scott recalls memorable moments hosting workshops in Tasmania as fundamental to their approach, including a moment in the north-eastern coastal Tasmanian town of St Helens. The town, as Scott explains, was experiencing a collective grief after a several young people within the town took their own lives over a short period of time, prompting the couple to deliver a presentation on the early warning signs for people at risk of suicide. At the end of the presentation, a man, quiet composed but visibly moved by the presentation, approached Scott to talk about his nephew, who had recently died by suicide. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018I can see it now. I can see the signs that were there. I didn\u2019t know what I was looking at then. I wish I had known what I know now\u2019,\u201d Scott recalls.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then he said: \u2018I can\u2019t change what happened. But now I can help others.\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is everything,\u201d Florence adds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe signs were there. But without knowledge you cannot see them.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd without knowing how to respond, even people who sense something is wrong offer advice rather than understanding \u2013 and the conversation closes at the moment it most needs to open.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat man walked out with something he didn\u2019t walk in with. The ability to see. And the ability to respond in a way that keeps the door open.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another moment that has stayed with them unfolded during a school Q&A session that happened to fall on R U OK? Day, the annual event aimed at encouraging peer-to-peer mental health check-ins.<\/p>\n
Asking the students what they thought of the day, Scott recalls being struck by one response.<\/p>\n
\u201cR U OK? Day sucks,\u201d a student said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked her gently to say more,\u201d Scott recalls. \u201cShe said it was tokenism.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne day a year, students were told to ask each other if they were okay \u2013 not because they had noticed anything, but because it was the one day you were supposed to. And when someone answered honestly, people either stumbled through a conversation they weren\u2019t equipped to have, or made a quick exit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe asked the crowd, how about we make it genuine, make it every day? And every hand in the hall went up. They looked taken aback. Nobody had ever given them that option before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the next 15 minutes, Scott introduced the concept of early warning signs \u2013 observable changes in behaviour that can indicate someone is struggling long before they are able to articulate it. He then worked through how to respond: how to open a conversation, remain present within it, and avoid the instinct to immediately fix or resolve.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end, students knew what to look for and how to respond,\u201d Scott says. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey said if a friend asked if they were okay now, they would know it was because that person had noticed something \u2013 not because of a script or a day on the calendar.\u201d <\/p>\n
The two moments demonstrate what the Harrods see as the value of their grassroots approach to mental health advocacy: building genuine connection, grounded in understanding rather than assumption.<\/p>\n
And the urgency of that work has only intensified. Crisis interventions for children at risk of suicide have roughly doubled between 2018 and 2023, according to a 2024 report from Kids Helpline. Meanwhile, data released in March by Suicide Prevention Australia found that nine in 10 workers experience work-related distress, with more than one in five reporting extreme levels, citing heavy workloads and burnout as key drivers.<\/p>\n
Where early conversations centred on the four pillars of mental health, the Harrods now draw on a growing body of research connecting brain health to everything from the prenatal environment to the long-term neurological effects of ultra-processed food \u2013 territory, Scott says, that the conventional system has been slow to engage with. <\/p>\n
These are complex, systemic issues, and the Harrods are careful not to position their work as a solution in isolation. Instead, they frame it as complementary \u2013 an attempt to address what happens before crisis point is reached. Their prevention-focused mission centres on what they describe as the foundations of brain health: sleep, nutrition, movement and community \u2013 factors they believe have been overlooked in the broader mental health conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe bring this knowledge to communities not as a replacement for clinical care, but as something that complements it,\u201d Scott says.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople deserve to know what the evidence says about the lifestyle foundations of brain health \u2013 and to have that knowledge sit alongside whatever care they\u2019re receiving. The conventional system hasn\u2019t been giving people that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe never walk into a room to tell people what they are doing wrong,\u201d Florence says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe give them a framework for understanding their own brain and their experience, and we show them what they can do.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe moment we live for is when someone goes from ashamed and helpless to understanding that there are things within their reach. To showing agency.\u201d <\/p>\n
Despite the scale of both the challenge and their undertaking, 10 years into the project the Harrods \u2013 who recently welcomed their first grandchild \u2013 show no sign of slowing down. They\u2019ve dedicated their lives full-time to the Sam Project, with Scott hinting at new partnerships in the pipeline that aim to further expand the reach and impact of their work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t reveal too much,\u201d Scott says, smiling. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut there\u2019s definitely a lot ahead for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
But even with those upcoming changes, the Harrods remain deeply motivated by and committed to the same genuine, and simple belief in taking action \u2013 whatever that may look like. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt began with a truck, a coffee trailer, a commitment to fund it themselves, and a simple idea,\u201d Scott says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat if you went to where people were, put the coffee on, and listened without an agenda, the truth would come to you.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith all that, ours is a pretty simple story.\u201d<\/p>\n
If this article has raised any concerns for you, or someone you know, support is available:<\/p>\n
Lifeline \u2013 13 11 14 (24\/7) <\/p>\n
Suicide Call Back Service \u2013 1300 659 467 <\/p>\n
Beyond Blue \u2013 1300 22 4636 <\/p>\n
Headspace \u2013 headspace.org.au <\/p>\n
Kids Helpline \u2013 1800 55 1800; <\/p>\n
Or if you\u2019re in immediate danger, call triple-0. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A decade ago, the couple were living in Sydney \u2013 Scott a business executive who also operated a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":["post-605766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}