NOVEMBER 16 2013
UnitingCare
Mental Health
Strategy
Submission to a Strategic Plan on
Mental Health reform in NSW
NSW Mental Health Commission
Submission to the NSW Mental Health Commission
UnitingCare Children, Young People and Families – November 16, 2013
i
© 2013 UnitingCare Children, Young People and Families
Prepared by Clive Price, Director Families
Phone
02 88300777
Email
cprice@unitingcarenswact.org.au
Submission to the NSW Mental Health Commission
UnitingCare Children, Young People and Families – November 16, 2013
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CONTENTS
UnitingCare Children, Young People & Families
1
Background
1
Focus on prevention and early action
2
About the UnitingCare Mental Health Strategy
3
Findings and Recommendations from the Report
3
The UnitingCare Prevention Project
4
Proposal
4
Conclusion
5
Submission to the NSW Mental Health Commission
UnitingCare Children, Young People and Families – November 16, 2013
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UnitingCare Children, Young People &
Families
UnitingCare Children, Young People and Families (Uniting Care CYPF) is a
Service Group of UnitingCare NSW.ACT (UnitingCare) and is part of the
Uniting Church in Australia. UnitingCare CYPF’s concerns for social justice
and the needs of children, young people, families and individuals who are
disadvantaged, informs the way it serves and represents people and
communities.
Background
UnitingCare (CYPF) currently works with children, young people, families and
individuals who are either experiencing and/or are at risk of developing future
mental ill health. For many of the people we seek to support, mental health
issues frequently exacerbate already difficult life experiences and may also
reduce the impact of our efforts to work with them to improve their life
outcomes. We believe that many of the services we provide in areas such as
family relationship counselling, family restoration, parenting support, out of
home care, crisis support and suicide prevention are likely to have positive
mental health and wellbeing impacts and that many of these may be
preventative in nature.
However, we have yet to apply a clear mental health lens through which we
can survey the full extent of these mental health impacts to enhance positive
outcomes of our clients/service users. We therefore believe that developing a
more explicit focus on preventative mental health has the potential to improve
the lives of the people we work with and can be accomplished by building on
some of our current strengths.
Our submission focuses specifically on the need for a greater emphasis on
mental health promotion and prevention. We also endorse the Lifeline
submission to the NSW Mental Health Commission and their suggestions on
what needs to change in the NSW mental health system, including:
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Increased investment to meet the level of demand
Allocating a greater proportion of funding to community-based mental
health services, including broad psycho-social support
Development of an integrated mental health system with better linkages
between different parts of the service system
Development and trialling a collaborative model of suicide prevention
Stronger processes for monitoring performance and outcomes being
achieved at state, regional and district levels.
Submission to the NSW Mental Health Commission
UnitingCare Children, Young People and Families – November 16, 2013
1
Focus on prevention and early action
Mental illness has major social and economic impacts on the Australian
community and in three quarters of instances, mental illness first occurs prior
to the age of 25. With adolescence being peak period of onset and in the
context of increasing community awareness of the benefits of early
intervention, the Australian Government is progressively expanding access to
new youth mental health services.
However, if the expansion of services providing early intervention for existing
mental ill-health is not supplemented with preventative strategies that address
the incidence of mental illnesses, then the direct and indirect costs of mental
illnesses can be expected to continue to grow, potentially to unsustainable
levels.
Risk and protective factors for future mental illnesses are well known and
evidence based prevention strategies exist, though remains relatively underutilised. Furthermore, preventative strategies that improve future adolescent
mental health are also likely to positively impact on physical health,
educational attainment and pro-social behaviours.
Prevention policy therefore requires other strategies that can explicitly
address family and community contexts. This need has been recognised
through initiatives such as the Family Mental Health Support Services, which
has aimed to provide flexible and responsive services for families with a view
to improving outcomes for children and young people up to the age of 18 who
are at risk of, or affected by mental illness.
Submission to the NSW Mental Health Commission
UnitingCare Children, Young People and Families – November 16, 2013
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About the UnitingCare Mental Health Strategy
In 2012, UnitingCare commissioned an external consultant to review current
policy settings and provide advice on options to expand mental health
provision through identified partnerships and funding opportunities across our
areas of service.
The Report confirmed UnitingCare’s role in mental health support and
intervention and a strong commitment was expressed in developing a
cohesive strategy given the mental health needs of many current UnitingCare
clients/service users and the logical synergies that exist with some existing
services and programs.
The UnitingCare Mental Health Project commenced in September 2013 with
initial funding from UnitingCare Ageing, Corporate Services and UnitingCare
CYPF. The responsibility of the overall strategy will be whole of life and
encompass both activities to address current mental health issues of selected
client groups and preventative strategies aimed at building the resilience of atrisk individuals to potential future mental ill-health.
Findings and recommendations from the Report
Mental health and wellbeing is an important community, economic and social
goal and mental illness accounts for a disproportionate amount of the burden
of disease and disability resulting in loss of productivity in the Australian
community as well as suffering for individuals and families.
The models of care and support for people with episodic or enduring mental
health problems have shifted dramatically in the last three decades based on
evidence of effectiveness. There is now a clear focus on primary mental
health care and early intervention increasing community and family resilience
to build mental health protective factors and reduce risks to mental health.
There is an additional focus on recovery and strengths based personalised
support for people with severe and enduring mental illness.
The evolution of mental health community support and early intervention has
many synergies with the person centred and strengths based care and
support models that operate in disability, family support and aspects of aged
care.
Many of the NGOs in NSW with similar backgrounds to UnitingCare have
diversified into provision of mental health care to fill gaps in their local
communities or because there are clear synergies with their core services.
The introduction of the NDIS or its successor will further harmonise the
principles and person centred approaches to care.
UnitingCare NSW and ACT, the Lifeline Centre Network and the Uniting
Church congregations are well placed to work together to capitalise on some
of the opportunities and synergies identified in the Report.
Submission to the NSW Mental Health Commission
UnitingCare Children, Young People and Families – November 16, 2013
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The UnitingCare Prevention Project
Since July 2013, Matthew Hamilton, Health Economist began working on an
integrated project funded by Peter Worland, Executive Director UnitingCare.
An Advisory Group was formed consisting of a range of specialists including
Professors Patrick McGorry and Iain Hickie. The purpose of the project is to
enhance the resilience of selected vulnerable populations in order to delay,
diminish or prevent the future development of mental ill-health. The initial
impact focus is on outcomes for children and young people.
If successful, aspects of the program may serve as a template for achieving
better preventative mental health outcomes in other age groups. Similarly,
although the initial phase of the project will be developed within UnitingCare
NSW.ACT, it is intended that successful innovations will shape policy and
practice nationally both through the wider UnitingCare network and the
Australian not-for-profit health and social care sector more generally.
As this project aims to articulate and achieve ambitious social impact goals,
the project will be developed within an initial 10 year planning horizon. For
similar reasons, project planning is being approached from the perspective
that the strategy developed will determine the level of funding required to
implement it, as opposed to starting by defining fixed budgetary parameters
within which the new strategy must be developed.
Proposal
We will prepare primary school age children for flourishing and resilient
adolescence through a cost-effective new program that
 Provides out-of-school-hours mentoring relationships that develop
individual child capabilities
 Helps schools, mentors and families identify opportunities to build social
supports for each child
 Assists family relationship services to develop more accessible and earlier
stage supports
 Promotes community norms and behaviours which enhance the social
supports of children.
We will demonstrate and deploy national exemplar expertise in
1. Mobilising and supporting community volunteers to provide safe,
sustainable and impactful mentoring relationships that develop the
capabilities of primary school children.
2. Early identification of family risk factors for future child/adolescent mental
ill-health.
3. Supporting family relationship services to facilitate earlier help seeking.
4. Promoting community adoption of early help seeking for relationship
problems and positive micro-changes in interacting with children.
5. Cost-effective social and family interventions to promote child wellbeing.
Submission to the NSW Mental Health Commission
UnitingCare Children, Young People and Families – November 16, 2013
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Conclusion
UnitingCare is confident that the journey to a more cohesive and connected
mental health system in NSW is one that will facilitate a balanced investment
providing a full range of supports ranging from mental health promotion and
prevention activities, through to early action, treatment and recovery.
UnitingCare wishes to extend its contribution to the positive mental health and
wellbeing of people in NSW to a whole of life strategy that encompasses both
activities to address current mental health issues of selected client groups and
preventative strategies aimed at building the resilience of at-risk individuals to
potential future mental ill-health.
Submission to the NSW Mental Health Commission
UnitingCare Children, Young People and Families – November 16, 2013
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