Make an Impact this Mental Health Awareness Month

[ArraDreaming]

What's the one improvement you'd like to see in the mental health system to make the experience better?

I live regionally
I would like to see more culturally safe and inclusive mental health services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, so you can connect with a worker that identifies

So far where I live there’s one medical service for First Nations community that has some allied health and it’s 40 mins from me
I would like some more options in that space

[Judi9877]

Hi @Ru-bee . I have some ideas of how to make the mental health system better such as:

- Don’t isolate people with mental illness alone in their rooms in public mental health wards. Give them the opportunity to socialise and get better instead of just being medicated and then discharge them when the ward needs the bed for someone else, who they deem to be more sick than you. Give patients knowledge and resources and hope so they can learn about their conditions and get better so they can limit their readmisson to the ward again. Connect them to services before discharging them to the community to fend for themselves and follow up with them after being discharged so they aren’t alone if they have any mental health issues after leaving hospital.

- Ensure mental health peer workers have adequate training behind them before going into peer work. I have had the experience of a peer worker at a PARCS complex who caused me trauma because they thought that a Cert IV in Mental Health and a Diploma in Mental Health qualified them to be a peer worker because they had a lived experience of anxiety yet didn’t know how to relate to my story and loved the sound of her own voice. They seemed to think that what worked for them would automatically work for me yet didn’t like it when it didn’t and I complained about it. 
- Have more community mental health services funded adequately so more people can access the services instead of only being limited to what services deem to be in need of immediate support, which is a joke where I live in Melbourne as even then, you’re not guaranteed of getting help anyway. Entice more people to become mental health workers and increase the workforce as there are more people needing support and help than than are psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals. 
- Fund more beds in public mental health hospitals and community mental health settings such as PARCS so people can receive the help they need and get better instead of cutting back the money and spending it on less required services such as a train system in Melbourne that isn’t necessary for example. 

Judi9877

[PeppyPatti]

Very good point @SmilingGecko 

I'll tell her next week when I see her about this very young support worker. But within one week I'll have a 54 year old support worker who will teach me quilting 😁 

Yippee !! It was very good what you wrote. I have more insight into it. 

Thankyou. 💕🦜

The bird is for you 😉 

[ArraDreaming]

I also think personalised supports have been huge for me not everyone fits into the same service model so people being flexible and tailoring things to you and how you work best

[Sooth]

"What's the one improvement you'd like to see in the mental health system to make the experience better?"

Thankyou for this opportunity. 

Long sentences forgive me.

Up until emergency services are called, before the use of sophisticated medical intervention, before State sanctioned medical and physical restraint, before an amazing example of teamwork by many trained committed health care professionals, there is a near broken family or friend/group or appalled neighbour on their own in a quiet street.

Returning a partially 'detoxed' as it were, person, to the same  uninformed unempowered (is there such a word?) exhausted inappropriate setting because they are not desperate enough, destroys their community support.

So, if the Australian Mental Health system is an Emergency Department only, then we need a complimentary Community Mental Health support System. 

And please I don't mean a phone call or an harassed overburdened social worker visit.

I mean support and recognition for the thousands of 'little unofficial mental health clinics' in quiet suburban streets all over Australia.

[changemaker6]

Good morning my friends  . .  thinking of you on world mental health day from Parliament House in Canberra with SANE. Catching up on all the fabulous work that SANE is doing in digital mental health. It has been exciting to go through the community and guided program portal. I am remembering all the remarkable people who got together 40 years ago to establish this powerful and influential community as we celebrate the progress made possible by our community coming together to share experiences, ideas, achievements, some of the tough gullies. Thank you for your contributions, for what you do every day giving, caring, sharing, loving. I am so proud to be involved.

[chibam]

Welcome to the forums, @changemaker6 ! 🙂

As you say, it's been a long road, and it feels like there's still a long way to go. I think that, often in very differant ways, it feels that way for most of us a lot of the time.

You and your colleagues are welcome here anytime, not just in "Mental Health Month". 🙂

[Ainjoule]

Hey @changemaker6 Great to have you with us!

[ArraDreaming]

Hello @changemaker6 my name is Arradreaming

[MJG017]

Welcome to the group @changemaker6, it's great to have you here and I hope you get a lot from looking around.  Thank you for taking this opportunity to visit our community here and seeing how we all try to care and support each other.  It's been invaluable for many of us.