16 March 2023

Hi there. In this edition, we are recruiting for our CEO and have launched our new website. 

You'll also find information on upcoming training, surveys, submissions, grants and opportunities, news articles, events and other useful mental health resources.

During the past fortnight, MHCC ACT joined a number of other community sector organisations to articulate our priorities to ACT Treasury for the 2023-23 ACT Budget.

Both the forthcoming Federal and ACT Budgets will be coming at a critical juncture for the mental health sector. We know that demand for mental health services is increasing, but funding hasn’t kept up.

As a number of articles and reports featured in this update highlight, rising cost of living pressures, the ongoing mental health shadow cast by the COVID-19 pandemic, and rising rates of housing and insecurity and homelessness are deepening the level of unmet mental health need across communities. The effects of economic insecurity on mental health and housing stress have also been highlighted in current inquiries into the costs of living at both the ACT and Federal levels, as well as recent Senate Inquiry hearings in Canberra into the extent and nature of poverty in Australia.

In this context, ensuring investment into vital community services – including community-managed mental health services – is imperative. A key concern for MHCC ACT is the failure to grow funding for community-managed mental health services in line with increased mental health need in our community. At the same time, the lack of adequate indexation has meant funding for community-managed services has actually gone backwards in real terms, as funding from government has not kept pace with wage increases and the rising costs of delivering services.

In addition to calling for overall funding to community-managed mental health services to increase, we urged the ACT Government to invest in integrated housing and mental health services, to fully resource the ACT mental health workforce strategy (with dedicated funding for the community-managed mental health workforce), and to invest in an initiative to support the mental health and alcohol and other drug (AOD) sectors to work collaboratively to support people with co-occurring mental health and AOD issues.

New MHCC ACT Website 

We've launched a brand new website to help make it easier to find information on what we're doing and resources for the sector. This includes a new members-only portal. Member organisations will be given login details through their primary contacts registered with us.

Please feel free to pass on your feedback on the website to communications@mhccact.org.au.

NSW Peak bodies come together to call for urgent reform and investment in mental health

A survey of clinicians and other mental health workers in NSW describes a mental health system in crisis, featuring chaos, confusion, fiscal neglect, and fragmentation. The research was commissioned by the NSW Branch of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists with the support of peak bodies representing other physicians, mental health nurses, mental health carers, mental health consumers and the community-managed mental health sector.

In the lead-up to the NSW election on 25 March, this alliance calls for mental health to be ‘a signature policy priority’ for the next NSW Parliament, arguing that, “unless there is urgent investment in, and attention to, the myriad of issues affecting the sector, particularly given the workforce issues, it will evolve into an irreversible downward spiral.”

10-year LGBTIQ+ Health and Wellbeing Action Plan

The Federal Government has committed to a 10-year national action plan for LGBTIQ+ health and wellbeing. The plan will include an LGBTIQ+ Health Advisory Group and $26 million for health research.

Homelessness funding letter

As we noted last edition, we are one of more than 200 of the nation’s leading charities and homelessness services that have signed an open letter imploring the Federal Government to plug a $65 million funding black hole that will see more than 650 homelessness support workers cut while demand for homelessness assistance is soaring.

While the Federal Government are yet to announce a reversal to the cut, the letter has generated significant media coverage:

- Urgent funding warning for homelessness services, The West Australian 

- Homeless help fears funding hole, ABC

- Urgent funding warning for homelessness services, The Border Mail

- Homelessness services plea for support as demand rises, Australian Property Journal

Sign the petition Don’t Close the Door – Save Homelessness Services 

Update on the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement: Psychosocial Support

MHCC ACT has been an active member of a national alliance calling for increased investment in psychosocial support services outside of the NDIS and, as a part of this, an analysis of the unmet need for psychosocial support services.

A Psychosocial Project Group of departmental officials, set up following the signing of the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement to undertake further analysis of psychosocial supports outside the NDIS, has reported back on their work to date.

The group has been working to reach consensus on a definition for psychosocial supports, targeted participants, and the scope of the analysis. This work has been informed by the various views of psychosocial sector representatives, including those put forward at the national roundtable which MHCC ACT attended on 22 November 2022.

To support the analysis of unmet need, the Project Group are also engaging a consultant with expertise in working with people with lived experience of mental illness and sector engagement.

This work is the first part of a two-stage approach. The next phase will look at models of psychosocial support and opportunities for new models.

Your Space

Carers ACT and Woden Community Services have partnered to create a safe space for group activities for people over 16 years of age experiencing mental ill health and their carers.

Your Space, a pilot service, has been designed to include programmed weekend activities in Woden to enable a person with mental ill health to participate in the community, build their social connection, explore activities of interest and encourage skill building. Reach out to find out more about eligibility, and times, and to book a place at Your Space.

OzHelp Launches Health in Trades Program

The OzHelp Foundation has launched the Health in Trades (HiT) Program to meet the continually evolving needs of the building and construction industry, supporting businesses and their people.

Recruiting for our CEO 

Following the resignation of Bec Cody, we are now recruiting for our new CEO. We're seeking someone with sound experience in a strategic leadership role, either in the community sector or another peak body, who is adept at working with people both internally and externally to achieve results.

- Corinne Dobson, Acting CEO MHCC ACT

NDIS news

The NDIS has announced that alternative dispute resolution processes set up recently by the National Disability Insurance Agency have reduced both legacy cases and new cases before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The NDIA has recently updated its guides with information on the hospital discharge process for both mainstream and community supports ) and medium-term accommodation.     

Podcast on the new age of regulation - Team DSC talks with NDIS Commissioner Tracy Mackey about what's ahead for the Commission and why education and consultation will play a critical role in ensuring compliance and progress for the sector.

Contribute to the NDIS CALD Strategy - If you have lived experience of disability and you are from cultural and linguistically diverse (CALD) background, the NDIS invites you to contribute to its new CALD Strategy.

Check out Team DSC's upcoming training.

In the media

       Access to mental health care

• Inequity in mental health care is widening, with treatment 'out of reach' for many Australians, ABC News
• Australians need quality digital treatments, not half-baked apps, MJA Insight

       Housing and homelessness 

• Building approvals have tumbled, deepening housing supply and affordability challenge, The Canberra Times

• Compassion is key in a world where anyone could be 'one bad event away from homelessness', Riotact

• Affordable rental stock halved, Australian Property Journal

• Life gets harder for lower-income renters, as properties under $400 a week – and hopes – plummet, Australian Business Review
  
  Sector Demand 
   

• Record searches for crisis support in January, Third Sector

• Cost-of-living pressures trigger record demand for Lifeline’s resources, Lifeline media release
  
  Cost of Living 
   

• Cost of living crisis hits unwanted milestone, according to Lifeline data, The Australian

• ‘There’s no excuse’: Cost of living crisis pushes more Canberrans into poverty, Canberra Weekly
  
  Other 
   

• Data and reporting needed on LGBTIQ+ experiences of coercion in Australia’s mental health system, Croakey

• Australia is about to legalise MDMA and psilocybin for medicinal use. So how will it work?, ABC News

• I think I need therapy. Here are 5 types of psychotherapy to help with almost any mental health problem, The Conversation

Planning and consultations

Mental Health Workforce Strategy Action Plan - Workshop

 Workshop 2 for the development of the ACT Mental Health Workforce Strategy Action Plan will be held on 3 April from 2pm to 4pm.

This workshop is addressing the following priority areas of the Mental Health Workforce Strategy.

• Attraction, recruitment, and retention
• Develop and embed the lived-experience workforce

This will be a hybrid workshop, the option for attending in-person (at Bowes St, Woden) or online via Webex.

If you want to attend in person, please register via eEventbrite. 

If you want to attend online, please register for the Webex meeting. clicking here.

Seeking participants

Upcoming MHCC ACT events

Introduction to motivational interviewing online

Final opportunities: Walk on Country training for our members

Other upcoming events

• Member Connect Webinar The ALIVE National Centre for Mental  Health Research Translation Consensus Statement, 12pm on 20 March, hosted by Mental Health Australia

• Mental Health First Aid Training, 9am on 20 March to 5pm on 21 March, hosted by WildTalk

• Mental Health First Aid Training, 18 to 19 March, hosted by This Is My Brave Australia

• 'Break the barrier' intergenerational learning circle, 10:30am on 19 March, hosted by SiTara's Story

• TheMHS Forum 2023, Sydney, 21 to 22 March, hosted by The Mental Health Services Learning Network

• The Big Issue Information Sessions, 2:30pm on 21 and 22 March, hosted by Woden Community Services. To RSVP, please email thebigissue@wcs.org.au

• Essentials for Volunteer Managers, 23 March, hosted by Volunteering ACT

• When you’re gone: Safeguarding the future of your family member with disability, 23 March, hosted by Imagine More

• Consumer Participation Training, 10am to 3pm on 24 and 31 March, hosted by the Health Care Consumers’ Association

• Workshop 2: Mental Health Workforce Strategy – Action Plan, in person/online   2pm to 4pm on 3 April, hosted by the Office for Mental Health and Wellbeing. 

• Grant Writing Workshop for the ACT Community Sector, 4 April or 1 June, hosted by ACTCOSS

• Perinatal Mental Health lived experience workshop to guide Perinatal Mental Heath Week 2023, 10:30am on 30 March, hosted by the Perinatal Mental Health Week team

• Consumer representation training, 11am to 2pm on Wednesdays from 19 April to 17 May, hosted by the ACT Mental Health Consumer Network. Email education@actmhcn.org.au for more information.

• Disability Services Digital and Technology Transformation Forum, 23 and 24 May, hosted by Aventedge

• Reconciliation Week, 27 May to 3 June

• 3rd International Indigenous Health & Wellbeing Conference, Cairns, 14 to 16 June, hosted by The Lowitja Institute

• Annual International Mental Health Conference, 7 to 9 June, Gold Coast, hosted by the Australian & New Zealand Mental Health Association

• Australian Psychosis Conference 2023, hosted by Psychosis Australia, Sydney, 11 to 13 September

• Indigenous Wellbeing Conference, Darwin, 30 to 31 October, hosted by the Australian & New Zealand Mental Health Association

Mental Illness Education ACT (MIEACT) is the primary local mental health and well-being education provider for workplaces, community groups and secondary schools across the Canberra region and surrounding area.

Each year MIEACT reaches over 30,000 Canberrans. Through their education programs they address stigma with programs that cover stress, body image, PTSD, bullying and mental illness.

DoNOHarm 

DoNOHarm is a 3 hour workshop provided by MIEACT that explores personal and professional boundaries to stay safe when hearing and sharing potentially triggering information and build skills to use inclusive language and minimise referred trauma. Further information on this program can be found here. 

Awards

Westfield Local Heroes

Westfield Local Heroes is an awards program that recognises individuals in Australia and New Zealand for their positive impact on local communities. Community members nominate their heroes, and Westfield selects three finalists to go through to a community vote. The successful heroes receive a $20,000 grant for the organisation they represent, and the finalists get a $5,000 grant for their organisation. Nominate by 30 March.

• Outcomes associated with ‘inclusive’, ‘segregated’ and ‘integrated’ settings for people with disability, Disability Royal Commission - This report concludes that people with disability will only be able to live free from violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation in settings where social inclusion is achieved.

• Professionals survey shows concern over funding cuts - A nationwide Australian Psychological Society survey conducted in January examined the impact of recent federal government funding cuts of subsidised psychology sessions from 20 to 10 per year for millions of Australians.

• The Early Impact of COVID-19 and Lockdowns on Health Outcomes for a Cohort of Older Adults, ACT Health. 

• Community Tracker for the March Quarter 2023, Suicide Prevention Australia                 - Almost half of all Australians (46%) are now reporting elevated distress from cost-of-living pressures – a significant increase (+5 points) on the December Quarter (41%).  Australians also ranked the top three risks to suicide rates increasing in the next 12 months as: cost-of-living and personal debt (69%,); housing access and affordability (53%); and unemployment and job security (51%), overtaking social isolation (51%) and relationship breakdown (51%).

• Closing the Gap, Productivity Commission - Targets to reduce the number of First Nations people dying by suicide are worsening. The report shows the gap is not closing fast enough and, on some measures, is going backwards.

Upcoming AIHW data releases

• 24 March: Suicide & self-harm ambulance, BoD, disabilty, COVID-19 update

• 28 March: Mental health services in Australia - tranche 1 update

• 29 March: Australia’s Disability Strategy Outcomes Framework webpages - March 2023 update

For workplace improvement

The Working Mind for Managers: Workplace Training by Lifeline Canberra

Managers, supervisors, and team leads have a special role in any organisation. The Working Mind is an evidence-based program designed to address and promote mental health in a workplace setting. This course teaches leaders to:

• understand mental health, recognise signs and indicators (in themselves and others)
• reduce stigma
• maintain mental health and improve resilience
• support your employees’ mental health and well-being
• enable employees to be more productive
• ensure the workplace climate respects and involves all employees 
• encourage employees to seek help for mental health problems

Details: 

• Tuesday, 9 May 2023, 9AM-5PM at Lifeline Canberra (1/71 Northbourne  Avenue, Canberra City)
• Cost is $400 per participant
• Questions? Contact training@act.lifeline.org.au

For front-line workers

• 11 psychological tips for front-line staff by the MindSpot clinic describes 11 practical psychological skills to help front line staff stay mentally resilient.

To help consumers

• Centre for Muslim Wellbeing series delivers strategies for coping with tragedy.
  The Centre for Muslim Wellbeing (CMWB) responded to the Türkiye and Syria earthquake tragedies in the most recent instalment of their video series Be Well.

Our members are recruiting. You can also see a weekly summary of member job opportunities each Friday on our LinkedIn channel.

• Chief Executive Officer, Mental Health Community Coalition ACT.  No due date. Please apply as soon as possible.

• Mental Health Service Assistant, CatholicCare. Applications close on 17 March.

• Family Case Manager, Woden Community Service. Applications close on 17 March.

• Project officer, ATODA. Applications close on 17 March.

• Senior Manager - Aged and Disability Services, Capital Region Community Services. Applications close 17 March.

• Assistant Retail Manager North Canberra, St Vincent de Paul Society. Applications close on 19 March.

• Lab Mentor/Group Facilitator (Autism Centre), Marymead Child and Family Centre. Applications close 19 March.

• Clinical Lead, headspace Canberra/Tuggeranong, Grand Pacific Health. Applications close 20 March.

• Alcohol and Other Drug Service (AOD) Service Manager, Toora Women. Applications close on 21 March.

• Online Communities Peer Support Moderator - Adult & Famil, Headspace National Office. Applications close 26 March.

• Senior Practitioner - headspace Canberra/Tuggeranong, Grand Pacific Health. Applications close 26 March.

• Trainee Educators, Woden Community Services. Applications close 30 March.

• Administration/Bookings Officer, Anglicare. Applications close 31 March.

• Room Leaders - School Aged Care Bureau, YWCA. Applications close 31 March.

• Assessment and Support Practitioner, Capital Region Community Services. Applications close on 9 April.

• Group Facilitator, Capital Region Community Services. Applications close on 9 April.  

• Qualified Lead Educator, Capital Region Community Services. Applications close 10 April.

• Early Childhood Educators, Anglicare. Applications Close 31 December.

• Administration Officer, Galilee School, Communities@Work. No due date. Please apply as soon as possible.

• Care Planner, Carers ACT. No due date. Please apply as soon as possible.

• Cert III Educators - Early Childhood Education and Care, Communities@Work. No due date. Please apply as soon as possible.

• Diploma Qualified Educators - Early Childhood Education and Care, Communities@Work. No due date. Please apply as soon as possible. 

• Early Childhood Centre Assistant Director, Northside Community Services. No due date. Please apply as soon as possible.  

• Educational Leaders - Early Childhood Education and Care, Communities@Work. No due date. Please apply as soon as possible. 

• NDIS Accommodation Manager, Access Lifecare. No due date. Please apply as soon as possible. Email HR@accesslifecare.org.au for more information.

• NDIS Support Coordinator (casual), The Quest Group. No due date. Please apply as soon as possible. 

• NDIS Supported Independent Living – Manager, Access Lifecare. No due date. Please apply as soon as possible. 

• Out of School Hours Care Educator, Anglicare. No due date. Please apply as soon as possible. 

• Program Worker, Wellways. No due date. Please apply as soon as possible. 

• Student and Family Counsellor, CatholicCare. No due date. Please apply as soon as possible.

• Teacher, Galilee School, Communities@Work. No due date. Please apply as soon as possible.

• Therapeutic Support Worker (Disability) – Children and Young People, The Quest Group. No due date. Please apply as soon as possible.

In this section, we want to include fun, uplifting or light-hearted stories linked to mental health. If you have an idea for an article to include, please email it to communications@mhccact.org.au.

How a fun choir in Goulburn makes huge impact on well-being

Editorial policy
Opinions expressed in articles included in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect the policy position of MHCC ACT. Information included in this newsletter is for general information purposes only and should not be seen as an endorsement of any particular service.

Our mailing address
Lvl 1, 20 Genge St, Canberra City, ACT 2601

Acknowledgement of Country
MHCC ACT acknowledges all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Traditional Custodians and Country and recognises their continuing connection to land, sea, culture and community. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present.