CEO Update - What is mental health reform and what does it mean for you?

What is mental health reform and what does it mean for you?

This is the question we posed to consumers at carers when I was the guest of the SANE Forums earlier this week. The overwhelming response only reaffirmed to me that we need to work harder to fix mental health in Australia.

Speaking broadly about ‘What is mental health reform? And what does it mean for you?’ I was encouraged by the opportunity to participate in the forum, but more importantly, and as I am lucky enough to do regularly, I benefit greatly from the chance to listen to individual stories of what is working… and what is not.

The forum was a chance for consumers and carers to ask their questions, tell their stories, and hear what we at Mental Health Australia, and our Members, are doing to advocate and to fix mental health.

Throughout the two hour forum, conversation flowed from the inadequacy of the draft Fifth National Mental Health Plan, to co-design, to the link with health and social services, to NDIS success and failures, to rationing of mental health services, stigma reduction, lack of targets, lack of spending, seclusion and restraint, and much more.

It was also a chance for people to tell their personal stories, which to me is most powerful advocacy tool we have. Telling stories at a local level, to local members and to local media, can highlight and potentially fix problems on the ground. It can also help celebrate the successes which we can in turn learn from.

As people told their stories, it was clear that they were passionate and emotional about our system, or lack of one, but a deep sense of disappointment also shone through.

One of the most telling comments on the night was the idea that if patients had a real choice, like consumers do in other areas of life, then poor services (public or private) would fail and the good would thrive.  Though too often the so called fix is under resourced and inadequate.    

To hear of similar issues in both regional and metropolitan Australia, to hear of inadequacies in systems that we are told are working, and to hear of our system actually hindering rather than helping, suggests we all need to work harder to push for and implement real reform.

At Mental Health Australia, we will continue to push for greater accountability, agreements between government about who is responsible for what, and adequate funding to do more with more, rather than continually trying to do more with less.

Engaging with SANE forum participants this week has further reinforced the fact that we need to do more… and we need to do it more urgently… to fix mental health.

And the more individuals who can speak up and tell stories, the more chance we’ll have of the right people listening and acting.

Can I also add that the SANE Forums are a great example of many, many organisations working together to provide a united service.  I congratulate SANE on such a successful initiative!

Click here to see the full forum conversation from this week’s SANE forum.

I was also delighted with the terrific response we received to our call for applications for the National Register of Mental Health Consumer & Carer Representatives, which closed yesterday.

A large number of applications were received from a diverse, skilled and committed range of mental health consumer and carer representatives from all across Australia.

The National Register is a vital program, which builds capacity and facilitates opportunities for mental health consumers and carers to actively engage in national mental health policy and program delivery and mental health reform activities.

The consumer and carer driven selection process will now commence, and we are looking forward to working with the newly appointed National Register members in the near future to further their important work.

Frank Quinlan

Chief Executive Officer