In 2017, there were 3,128 lives lost to suicide in Australia, a nine percent increase on the year before and one life lost every three hours.

While over 11 percent of the Australian population in 2015 reported having an anxiety-related condition. 

Before Thursday's launch of the program, all the athletes came together and had a training day where they shared their stories. 

It was quite emotional as 21 athletes shared their stories.

“To sit in the room and here one by one all the different ways in which mental health is around and how everyone battles differently. Just to bring that all together and have 21 amazing athletes sharing these stories, it was an emotional day,” O'Hea said.

Athletes including Winter Olympian Belle Brockhoff, Olympic sprint paddler Jo Brigden-Jones and surfer Sophie Fletcher are also part of the program, each having their own personal stories with mental health. 

As an athlete, O'Hea hopes that they are able to spread their message about mental health across Australia and to their own communities.

“I think athletes are just such great role models," she said. 

"When we speak about things, we are hoping that the young children who look up to us realise that it's okay to talk about it and that we could change the perception around mental health, starting from a really young age that this stigma can decrease, and we can start talking about it more.

"The brain is just such a massive organ in our body and we need to look after our brains like we look off to ankle and knee injuries and we need to look after our mental side of things as well so as athletes, I think it's really powerful that we can speak about that.”

The Community Custodians will be traveling around Australia over the next 12 months to help raise awareness about mental health.

For help, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or MensLine Australia on 1300 78 99 78, visit lifeline.org.au or mensline.org.au