WAAMH is very encouraged by the federal government's commitment made to the recommendations of the National Review of Mental Health Services, announced on 25 November.

After a succession of reports identifying the extent of problems in mental health going back decades, the sector needed a strong commitment to address them from the national government, and it appears to have got that. It is, however, somewhat disappointing the government was not able to commit an up-front investment to kick-start the shift to prevention and early intervention.

Here is WAAMH's media release on the federal announcement. Further detail can be found on the Federal Government Response to Review of Mental Health Programmes and Services Fact Sheet.

WA’s Mental Health Act 2014 went live on 30 November. The new Act introduces important additional rights and safeguards for people undergoing treatment, their families and carers. It also introduces changes to the roles of entities that have functions related to the Act. To find out more about the new Act go to the Mental Health Commission's eLearning resource.

Thank you to all WAAMH’s many friends for your support for in 2015 and best wishes a peaceful and restful Christmas and New Year. Please note our head office will be unattended from 24 December 2015 to the 18 January 2016.

Rod Astbury
Chief Executive Officer
WA Association for Mental Health

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Check out Mindful Employer's tips for making Christmas work for you, here.

WAAMH is proud to be involved with the Looking Forward project, an initiative which aims to positively change the way mental health, and drug and alcohol services are delivered to Aboriginal people living in the southeast metropolitan region of Perth.

Last month, the WAAMH team visited Balladong with Aboriginal elders Uncle Charlie and Aunty Helen Kickett. It was a peaceful, reflective and relaxing day of learning as Charlie showed us why the land was so special to making his heart happy.

The Looking Forward project connects elders to mental health leaders in order to improve mental health outcomes for all Aboriginal people, by gaining a better understanding of Aboriginal culture, to better respond to their needs in the community. To view images of the day, click here.

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DISABILITY Awareness Week runs from 29 November to 5 December, with International Day of People with Disability celebrated on 3 December.

WAAMH supports this week and its aspiration that we all live in welcoming communities that facilitate citizenship, friendship, mutual support and a fair go for everyone.

For more information on WAAMH's work on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), click here.

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OUR Community of Practice blog features opinion, news, debate and key learnings around topical issues affecting the WA NDIS My Way trial sites. Our latest blog discusses mixed views of the NDIS Act's permanency requirement. Read it here.

The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) hosted a webinar on psychosocial disability and the NDIS on 7 October. You can access the webinar here, as well as additional information highlighting the key themes and responses to questions raised throughout the webinar, here.

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THE Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS held a roundtable on 23 October on disability housing options. The transcript of the roundtable is available on the Australian Parliament website, here.

Adjunct to the roundtable discussion is the Australian Housing and Research Institute's report which highlights some of the key learnings from overseas and Australia emerging from the implementation of individualised housing and social support. Read the report, here.

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OVER the past six months, WAAMH has curated content across a range of topics, including co-production. You can access our curated content, here.

This month's curated content is from the Bridgespan Group and outlines a Leadership Development toolkit. The toolkit details five habits of highly effective leadership developers and the creation of a “Plan A”. View a video here for further information.

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AFTER 18 months of development, a task group with lived experience, education, and service provider membership have now completed the business model and plan for the Recovery College of WA.

Specific development tools were used in conjunction with a co-production process that included workshops involving people with a lived experience and consultation with people who had expressed interest in support for the college.

On behalf of the task group, WAAMH  thanks Carly Gettingby, Julie Jamieson, Kerry Hawkins, Andrew Markov and Veronica Bruce for providing their lived experience expertise to the process.

WAAMH also acknowledges generous financial support from the Mental Health Commission, Lotterywest, Ruah, Helping Minds and Richmond Wellbeing, which has been instrumental in the project reaching this important milestone.

We are also delighted to introduce the logo for the Recovery College WA (pictured above) which was developed with the enthusiastic support of the working group and the creative expertise of White Mouse Design.

More details will be available on the Recovery College in the New Year.

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REGISTRATIONS are now open for The Western Australia Mental Health Conference 2016, to be held over two days from 10 - 11 March 2016 at beautiful Fraser’s in West Perth. The picturesque backdrop of Kings Park overlooking the Swan River will provide the perfect setting for a comfortable, inclusive and collaborative space to learn, inspire and share knowledge.

Register Now! Click here.

• Early Bird registrations close 31 December 2015
• Final registrations close 26 February 2016

Keynote Speakers:

• University of Nottingham Professor of Mental Health Recovery and Social Inclusion Dr Mike Slade (UK)
• University of Vermont College of Medicine in Burlington Medical Director and Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry Dr Sandy Steingard (USA)
• National Empowerment project leader Professor Pat Dudgeon (AU)
• Comedian Felicity Ward (pictured above)

The conference will be opened by the Honourable Helen Morton MLC, Minister for Mental Health; Disability Services; Child Protection. Read more about our speakers, here. More great speakers will be announced soon!

Sponsors:

Thank you to the WA community for their incredible support of our inaugural conference.

Conference Exhibitors

• Helping Minds
• Rio Tinto
• Ruah Mental Health
• Richmond Wellbeing
• UnitingCare West
• Mental Health Law Centre
• Sids and Kids
• Carers WA
• Palmerston
• Share & Care Community Services
• MercyCare
• Brain Ambulance

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7 December 2015 - Preventing Psychological Injury at Workplace

THIS course back by popular demand, utilises a risk management approach, and is designed to help organisations understand and manage psychological injury and offers a suite of prevention tools and techniques, with direct application across diverse industries. Register here.

Community Mental Health Recovery (Cert IV)

ARE you an existing or potential mental health support worker who would like to complete a formal training course? Register now for our newly revised course commencing next year. Designed to provide participants with a range of rehabilitation and support skills, this course will focus on recovery-oriented, community-based support, intervention and promotional work. To register, email, here.

Custom courses

CONTACT us today to discuss how we can customise a course to meet your organisation’s requirements. Choose from a half-day or full-day course, pick your date and venue and we will provide highly skilled trainers, along with quality resources and attendance certificates. View the wide range of courses available to be delivered in a custom version, here.

SHINE eLearning

SHINE is an online learning resource, ideal for use as an induction tool for staff new to the mental health sector or as a refresher course for existing mental health support staff. The 11 modules can be completed at your own pace, in one day or even over a year. To learn more about this online educational resource, click here.

For further information on courses or to register contact: P: 9420 7277 or E: info@waamh.org.au

THE mental health, disability and law reform sectors are still waiting for the government to release the review of the CLMIA Act. As it becomes increasingly unlikely the government will review the Act in this term of government, WAAMH has started working with the Australian Labour Party to encourage a commitment to reforming the Act in its forthcoming election promises.

At the United Nations Periodic Review held in Geneva last week, the Australian Government made a voluntary commitment to improving the way the criminal justice system treats people with cognitive disability who are unfit to plead, or found not guilty by reason of mental impairment. As part of this, the government commits to a national effort to analyse existing data and develop best practice resources for our jurisdictions.

The Review was followed with advocacy from a range of NGOs including a submission from the Human Rights Law Centre, available here,  and a news article highlighting the advocacy conducted by the First People’s Disability Network, here. More details will follow once available.

See WAAMH's advocacy on CLMIA to date, here.

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Submission to the Commissioning of the Information, Capacity Building and Linkages (ILC) Framework

WAAMH thanks all participants for their valued involvement in our survey and consultation workshop which yielded a wealth of information, utilised in our submission. It supported the position on maintaining the strength of Partners in Recovery and other mental health programs.

This submission is underpinned by a number of assumptions and recommendations which are grounded in the context of a policy, and evolving funding landscape. The NDIS is only one part of a broader system that offers programs and supports for people with psychosocial disability and, as such, it is essential that the Commissioning Framework for ILC is considered alongside the government’s response to the Mental Health Commission’s ‘Contributing lives, thriving communities - Review of Mental Health Programmes and Services’. Read the federal government's recent response to the Review, here.

WAAMH welco,med the government's response to the  review which includes an action to, "urgently clarify the eligibility criteria for access to the NDIS for people with disability arising from mental illness and ensure the provision of current funding into the NDIS allows for a significant Tier 2 system of community supports."

The government response notes the primary mechanism for this work is the NDIA Mental Health Sector Reference Group. WAAMH will provide more details about the Review as information becomes available.

We also recommended that the ILC fund specific supports to enable possible mental health consumers to engage with the scheme, test their eligibility and navigate the system so they can access needed services.

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A SECOND submission to the Inquiry into the efficiency and performance of WA Prisons was completed by WAAMH earlier this year, following extensive engagement with the ERA, WA Networks of Alcohol and Other Drug Agencies (WANADA) and Western Australian Council of Social Services (WACOSS).

The final report of the Inquiry is now available and has been provided to Parliament. The ERA made 44 recommendations across 4 key areas of:

1. Establishing consistent standards across the prison system;
2. Setting clear and meaningful performance benchmarks;
3. Introducing better planning, processes, and use and disclosure of performance information, and;
4. Establishing a better framework for choosing prison operators that considers the merits of public, private, and not-for-profit providers.

Throughout the Inquiry, WAAMH effectively influenced the ERA, resulting in a recognition of the overrepresentation and importance of mental health issues in prisons, and a number of our recommendations being accepted.

WAAMH especially welcomed the ERA including specific recommendations about mental health benchmarks. The benchmarks relate to;

• the number of prisoners assessed as having a mental health issue on arrival whose mental health has improved whilst at the prison;
• the number of prisoners released with a medical discharge plan, and;
• suicide and attempted suicide measures.

Other welcomed recommendations made by the ERA included that the Department improved data collection, and data sharing and transparency.

WAAMH’s submissions and engagement with the Inquiry can be found, here.

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FOLLOWING the release of the National Mental Health Commission’s recent National Mental Health Services Review, WAAMH has been working alongside Mental Health Australia to engage local federal politicians, and calling on them to further national reform efforts. This work is part of MHA’s ‘Countdown to Reform’ campaign.

WAAMH recently met with Senator Rachel Seiwert, Greens Senator for WA, and the Hon. Melisa Parke MP, Federal Labor Member for Fremantle, to engage them in discussions about the local importance of the NDIS and the National Review of Mental Health Programmes and Services.

There is still time for you to reinforce national advocacy by contacting your local member to ask for their support in progressing national mental health reform, click here.

THANK you to everyone who supported Mental Health Week in 2015! We are really proud of how the week went and want to make sure 2016 is even better.

We would appreciate if you could provide us with your feedback by completing a short survey, here. It should only take 5 to 10 minutes to complete.

If you are interested in being considered for the Mental Health Week 2016 steering committee, becoming a sponsor, or partnering to co-host a large community event, please email communications@waamh.org.au

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JUDGING of our Mental Health Week School Poster Competition has been completed.

Demi (age 9) from Helena College Junior School won first prize with her amazing poster (left) representing how she would Act, Belong and Commit to keep mentally healthy.

Charmagne (age 11) from South Lake Primary School and Isabella (age 13) from the School of Isolated and Distance Education were awarded second and third prizes.

Check out our album to see the top 11 entries from across the state, here.

THE University of Western Australia's School of Dentistry is conducting a research project about the oral health care of mental health consumers.

Evidence suggests that mental health consumers are less likely to access and receive appropriate oral health care.

While acknowledging the importance of providing both mental health and physical health care, research to improve the oral health care of mental health consumers is limited.

The aim of this study is to investigate the perceptions of dental health professionals, mental health professionals, and mental health consumers and carers on the oral health of mental health consumers, and to identify current barriers and enablers to improving oral health and access to care in this group.

This is a qualitative research project where participants will be either interviewed, lasting around 30-45 minutes or attend a focus group for about 90 minutes. All information provided will be confidential.

UWA research fellow Dr Clair Scrine would like to talk to any appropriate mental health professionals (community-based mental health consumers and carers) about the needs, issues and gaps people experience with regard to their oral health.

To be involved or for more information, please contact: clair.scrine@uwa.edu.au or phone 9346 7873.