Since 2016, the University of New South Wales has formally recognised the contributions of persons involved in promoting mental health or the prevention and treatment of mental illness, honouring individual achievements through annual The Australian Mental Health Prize.

The recipient of this year's award, Megan Krakouer, a proud Menang woman of the Noongar nation, is a proud mother and grandmother who has worked supporting communities, advocating, reducing the impact of suicide, and playing a key role in social movements.

She is also a youth advocate who has been pivotal in establishing a class action against the state of Western Australia over its management of Banksia Hill Detention Centre.

Earlier this year she spoke at an Invasion Day rally expressing her opposition to the Voice to Parliament, however she has since changed her position and confirmed she will be Voting Yes come referendum day.

Ms Krakouer told National Indigenous Times her work has always centred around supporting "the most marginalised, vulnerable, silenced and forgotten".

"What I do right now is just who I am, it's just about helping, supporting, loving, caring about people. The work, it's about providing that intensive psychosocial support - the assertive outreach - which is twenty-four-seven," she said

Ms Krakouer draws strength and inspiration from her parents, who grew up on the outskirts of Mt Barker at a time when they were required to leave the town by 6pm.

"There was a lot of racism, discrimination, segregation back in the days," she said.

"Mum and Dad, they have both passed away now, but they had incredible honour, incredible integrity and always showed us so much love and kindness, we were very well looked after.

"I just try and make my voice useful and walk alongside device, marginalised brothers and sisters or highlight their truth and deal with love, kindness and respect."

After studying a Bachelor of Law at Deakin University, Ms Krakouer, together with Gerry Georgatos, established the National Suicide Prevention and Trauma Recovery Project (NSPTRP).

She said that to date NSPTRP has served as a lifeline to more than 25,000 people by responding to assaults, suicides, suicidality, incarceration, deaths in custody and supporting people transitioning out of incarceration and those who are without a home.

The project has seen Ms Krakouer provide support services inside 27 prisons across the country in jurisdictions including Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia, and Tasmania, supporting brothers and sisters or as she says, "souls".

"I wanted to help and support and to give hope. So that they can live their best life when they are released," she said.

Her work extends beyond prisons to families. She has provided trauma support to those impacted by suicide and has been at the bedside of a ten year old whose life support has been turned off.

"Mothers and fathers are burying their children, we weren't put on this earth to bury our children. Our children are there to live beautiful, healthy lives. But too often that doesn't happen," she said.

When referencing the National Closing the Gap targets she said of her project: "We've seen the gaps and filled the gap."

"You hear the stories of organisations where they get the five the ten, fifteen, twenty odd million (dollars). That is not our story. Our story has been one where it's anything but that," she said.

"In Banksia Hill and also Acacia Prison, we have reduced suicidality - that's a fact... It's been really quite humbling in that sense... where two people can go make that difference in these prisons and have remarkable results.

"I'm immersed in the grim reality, I see all the sadness one family after the next after next and sometimes it's just a matter of connecting a person to a particular service and to alleviate their concerns."

The lack of reoccurring funding for her program has seen Ms Krakouer lose her own home three times.

"I've walked away from well-meaning jobs and well-paid positions to come into this, where I knew that it would be difficult to get funding."

As someone who is on the ground speaking with mob on a regular basis, Ms Krakouer said that poverty is a primary factor behind the many challenges First Nations people face.

"Right across the country, 40 per cent of our people fall below the poverty line in Western Australia. My home state there is 60 per cent and I can add on territories about 75-80 per cent.

Ms Krakouer said those who are committing crimes are often trying to lead law-abiding lives, but the conditions such as the exorbitant price of groceries, combined with limited employment opportunities and a minimal education, can make this difficult.

"It is very much a poverty narrative. To fix the problem, you need to fix the poverty and if you fix the poverty, it will take away the majority of the issues," she said.

Last year the ABC reported residents of a remote community in the Northern Territory were paying as much as $74 for a tin of coffee and more than $8 for two litres of milk.

"Right across the country there's about 1,200 remote communities and in the 1,200 remote communities there are about 120,000 people. Now there are about 35,000 children that will never get an education. So these are the types of narratives and statistics that we basically need to bring through and educate the nation and do it in a kind and loving way," said Ms Krakouer.

She said it is time for people across the country to understand these issues and how they impact on First Nations people.

Ms Krakouer highlighted that closing the gaps targets are getting bigger in Western Australia with First Nations children in detention and in out of home care.

"Just to contextualise, in 1997 there was the National Bringing Them Home report, there were two thousand black kids in care. In 2008, the Prime Minister at the time Mr Rudd when he gave the apology to the stolen generations, there are 8000 black kids in care. Today, there's 23,000 black kids in care right across the country," she said.

Her work doesn't end with NSPTRP, Ms Krakouer is involved in organising rallies across Australia and overseas, including Invasion Day marches across the country and has been a key driver of the Banksia Hill protests and rallies which were designed to "hold people to account".

When asked if she feels that Voice to Parliament will improve outcomes for First Nations people she said: "I didn't initially, I had mighty major issues with it."

"It couldn't compel change, it was clear that it could only make representations. The Constitution is racist anyway. In Western Australia in 2015, Aboriginal people were recognised in the West Australian Constitution and it still hasn't made a difference on the ground," she said.

Ms Krakouer said she had a change of heart on the Voice due to the recent passing of two young men.

"It just really broke my heart, one of the little ones, he'd been in taken into care and when he was about seven years old, he lost his 18-year-old brother to suicide when he was 10 years old," she said.

She noted the case of another young man, a young father who took his own life shortly after getting out of prison.

"That's when I thought, okay, I maybe need to look at things differently and see things from a different lens," she said.

Ms Krakouer said a centralised or coordinated body to respond to critical issues could help tackle: "The biggest crisis of our times."

"I see that as a good thing. So I am now supporting in that respect," she said.

"I can't say whether it's going to be successful or not... But in saying that, at this point, I'm not prepared to pay political football with our lives."

She said there is a need for "mass investments" into communities, "in remote communities where there is no secondary school for children so they have to leave their homelands or their communities, it's a poverty narrative".

"The housing crisis is absolutely atrocious right across the country in Western Australia. We've got 19,000 families on the waiting lists (for public and social housing) equating to 49,000 people," she said.

"The governments of the day need to be more humane, they need to do away with their political footballing. Speak to the lived experience who have been impacted because too often a lot of policies.

"You need to speak to the to the people that have been impacted whether it be incarceration, whether it be death in custody. Let the people speak and don't speak for us without us.

"Invest in the communities, there's so many remote communities where there is no aged care facility. One of the Elders, because she couldn't get out of bed and there was no proper help and assistance for her in terms of what she needed, is now living in Alice Springs away from her homelands, is that her preference? No."

Ms Krakouer said she agreed with Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price on the need for an inquiry into the funding of Aboriginal organisations.

"Some programs are working well. Other ones not working well and we need to invest properly, where they can make a difference. Instead of these big organisations continuing to soak up that funding," she said.

She rejected the senator's view on colonialism as "positive" for Indigenous people.

"It doesn't sit well with my values, or my integrity and what I know... I totally disagree with that because I see the impact of it every single day and we must remember in terms of colonisation, that it wasn't a long time ago. We still have people alive today that have been suffering the impacts of the Stolen Generations," she said.

Ms Krakouer said that in parliaments across Australia today "there are some good people and there's some beautiful Aboriginal people that are in politics, and they try their best in so many respects", but "once you're in politics... they are there representing their electorate, not necessarily black issues", hence the need for a Voice.

"I have a great deal of love and respect for Linda Burney, she's a very kind soul," she said.

"There's others that I just think try their best and I think that some in politics really need to be careful when they're having their public stoushes. Because that is a poor representation on First Nations people across the country, we can't even show collectively that our leadership is strong."

Ms Krakouer said that the strength of the community keeps her strong during what is often challenging work.

"Or when a person who had little hope, who's lost both mum and dad to suicide, eventually get jobs and have babies and get houses for the very first time. It's those things that make my heart really happy and like just keeps me that gives me strength to continue on one hard day after next but those days," she said.

She said that visiting her mother and father's resting place in Mt Barker also gives her the strength to continue to carry on "because sometimes I feel like I'm carrying their legacy".

Whilst funding from government has been difficult, Ms Krakouer highlighted how she was fortunate to receive a philanthropic donation after a potential donor had attended a Human Rights Commission event where she had delivered a speech.

The generous donor she said provided funding for an office space for the National Suicide Prevention and Trauma Recovery Project (NSPTRP).

"I was just completely humbled because that now makes a big difference to our lives," she said.