Mental health reform: pick something and stick to it

The long road to mental health reforms needs greater leadership from the sector, according to a panel of experts.

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Amid the recent discussion around the need for mental health reform, Karen Thomas, director of community supports and wellbeing at Neami National, offered an alternative perspective at today’s mental health leaders and members forum in Melbourne.

“I’ve worked in the [mental health] sector for quite some time… and the amount of reforms and initiatives I’ve seen is ridiculous because you don’t get time to do that embedding, establishing, developing and improving – it’s straight on to the next thing and the next thing.

“It impacts on staffing, it impacts on consumers, it impacts on the whole sector. I just want them to slow down a bit and stick with one initiative for a while so that we can focus and get that [working] really well for people.”

Acting like a cat on a hot tin roof and jumping from initiative to initiative makes it very hard to know what’s working – and what isn’t – according to Mental Health Australia CEO Carolyn Nikoloski, who facilitated the panel.

The panel, which also included mental health and suicide prevention consultant Ingrid Ozols AM, Transforming Trauma Victoria clinical program director Dr Rahul Khanna and Mental Health First Aid USA vice president Tramaine El-Amin, called for the mental health sector to take greater leadership on certain aspects and initiatives rather than waiting for the government to act.

One particular example was sitting around the table and having the difficult conversations the government was unwilling to have.

“I would love to see a government be brave enough to say, ‘I don’t know the answer’, or ‘I can’t give you the answer to this question’, as opposed to buck passing and continually saying it’s going to happen [without delivering things],” said Ms Ozols.

“On the reverse of this, I know there are certain topics many families don’t want to talk about. I often sit with my loved ones around a table and want to hit on a topic [like mental health] and I’ll get shot down because it’s uncomfortable.

“And yet by not talking about it, by not being uncomfortable at that table, we’re doing the same thing that we want our governments [to stop doing].”

The panel agreed that the public and the sector being open about experiences, skills and learnings in an informal session would be a low-cost, high-impact step that would go a long way to contributing to the broader reforms.

Last week’s joint meeting of health and mental health ministers will be the first of many discussions about the key issues affecting the country’s mental health system, with ministers committing to twice-yearly meetings to continue progressing reform priorities.

The federal government also released the full response to the final report of the analysis of unmet need for psychosocial supports outside of the National Disability Insurance Scheme following the meeting of the ministers – 20 months after the report was released.

The panel also highlighted the need to be patient and celebrate the wins – like the government releasing a document they’ve been sitting on for the best part of two years – along the way.

“Patience and persistent will and collaboration are required to have that change over time – it won’t happen in a single electoral cycle, we just need to keep the foot on the pedal,” said Dr Khanna.

“Changing mental health policy is a long, hard slog, and it’s important we stop and reflect along the way,” said Nikoloski.