QMHC eNews - Issue 19

Commissioner's Update

Our performance

In May 2014 an initial survey of stakeholders was done, as the first step to measuring your satisfaction with the support and achievements of the Commission. You can read the feedback report here.

You will shortly be receiving an email asking for your feedback on our second year. I encourage you to once again have your say.

In response to your feedback last year we have:

• Increased the number of people with whom we are in direct contact through eNews and our contact data base from 1058 to 1835 and made better use of social media
• Initiated or contributed to working groups on a range of projects arising from the strategic plan including:
  • Consumer, family and carer engagement and leadership
  • Integrating consumer experience into perinatal mental health education
  • The mental health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
  • Mental health awareness, prevention and early intervention
  • Drug and alcohol issues
  • Least restrictive practices, including locked wards
  • Rural and remote issues
  • A renewed approach to suicide prevention in Queensland
• Listened to consumers, families and carers. This is fundamental to everything we do. We have done this by:
  • Actively identifying and engaging with consumer, family and carers in the community and through peak bodies
  • Involving consumers in shaping pre-service mental health nurse training
  • Seeking out and including the views of consumers, families and carers in our work on new mental health legislation for Queensland
  • Learning from consumer experiences of telehealth/telepsychiatry to shape best practice
  • Including consumer perspectives in a review of social housing for people with complex needs
  • Commencing a project to develop consumer, family and carer engagement and leadership best practice principles
•  Considered the needs of people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to ensure these voices are heard and interests represented, including for instance in the allocation of grants
• Had discussions with the Auditor-General about what can be done through their office to ascertain whether or not all monies allocated to Hospital and Health Services for mental health is actually spent on that program
• Created a Commission Facebook page so we can better hear and respond to your views

More detailed information is available on our website

Listening to consumers, families, carers

Letters, emails, phone calls

Conversations this month have focused on the desire for families to be heard, particularly in relation to admission and discharge from hospitals.

In the coming months, as part of our Suicide Prevention Action Plan, we will be working with Queensland Health and families to identify how best we can equip Accident and Emergency Departments to be more responsive to people at risk of suicide.

Empowering consumers, families and carers

The Commission held a roundtable on 26 May 2015 to look at increasing the participation of consumer academics in the education and training of mental health nurses.

All participants agreed the importance of the work at hand, and continuing to work together, finding new areas to collaborate on and promoting this collaborative approach as the new standard for nurse education and training in Queensland.

Read more here

Be Heard: Mental Health Bill

We’re gathering your views about the (exposure draft) Queensland Mental Health Bill 2015 on Facebook.

We’re pleased that the new Bill has taken up many of the suggestions we put last year to improve the lives of people living with mental illness.

We want your feedback on a number of issues, particularly those identified by the Mental Health and Drug Advisory Council at its April 2015 meeting.

This legislation must set the foundations and provide independent oversight for a least restrictive approach to treating people with serious mental illness, that protects their rights, safeguards the community and ensures the knowledge and experiences of their families are respected.

Read the Council’s views here

Speak up

Discussion topics on Facebook so far include:

• Patient rights advisors – should they be part of the treating team or totally independent? And what model should we have to run these services?
• Advance Health Directives, Involuntary Treatment and ECT – should an advance health directive be able to be over ridden in some circumstances? Can you refuse ECT, even under involuntary treatment? Under what circumstances should your power to decide your treatment be binding?
• Involuntary examination authorities — JEOs are out. Clinicians and the Mental Health Tribunal will decide if involuntary treatment is necessary. This new approach provides additional safeguards against inappropriate orders, but is the balance between safeguards and timeliness right?

Coming up

Upcoming Facebook discussions to look out for include:

• Patient Rights
• Family and carers
• MHRT and legal representation
• Access to treatment

Let us know if there are any particular topics you would like us to post.

Next steps

Consultation on the Bill closes on 26 June 2015. The Commission will make a fresh submission informed by your comments and publish it in due course.

Read the exposure draft Bill and consultation documents here

Clinical review of serious mental health events

We have had preliminary discussion with Queensland Health about the state-wide clinical review of serious mental health events announced by Health Minister Cameron Dick. The review will focus on homicides or attempted homicides involving people with mental illness, either as a victim or perpetrator. Read more here

Listening to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

NEP next steps

The Commissioner recently met with Adele Cox the National Empowerment Project to plan the next stages of the work in Cherbourg and Kuranda. Over the life of the NEP in Queensland, the Commission has invested $511,000 for support services, community worker training and a healing program in each community.

Initial feedback from the evaluation suggests this project is really making a positive difference in the lives of individuals.  We hope that our investment can help build the evidence base for significant investment from the Commonwealth Government.

Townsville suicide prevention pilot

We have also recently commissioned Barbara Schmidt & Associates to do some work on the ground in Townsville following the Advisory Council’s request that we investigate options for a trial 24 hour primary health service in Townsville focused on suicide prevention.

Measuring Indigenous wellbeing

The Commission has started a project to create a set of indicators for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social, emotional wellbeing, mental health and substance use for Queensland.

The indicators project will help support measurement of high level, system-wide change in the three interlinked areas of social and emotional wellbeing, mental health, and substance misuse.

A steering group will guide the project, which is expected to run to the end of July 2015. If you would like more information or would like to discuss or contribute to the project, contact Alistair Mac Donald at either alistair.macdonald@qmhc.qld.gov.au or visit our website

Farewell Diego de Leo

Professor Diego de Leo of the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention has announced his return to Italy. During his 18 years in Queensland he has built a global reputation for the Institute and its work, including the Queensland Suicide Register (which is still unique to Queensland). The Institute is a leader in national and international suicide research and training both as a National Centre for Excellence and as a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre.

Congratulations to Qld Chief Psychiatrist

Queensland’s Chief Psychiatrist, Assoc Professor John Allan, was among award winners at this year’s annual RANZCP College Ceremony. John won the Margaret Tobin Award for the RANZCP Fellow who has made the most significant contribution to administrative psychiatry in Australia and New Zealand over the preceding five years. More here

Kick off MHW15

Value mental health

Get set for more sizzle in Mental Health Week 2015.

We’ve been working behind the scenes with Open Minds and sector partners to refresh and modernise the MHW theme, logo and website, amplify our message with a state-wide media plan, promote greater involvement across the regions and have greater reach into the general community.

You’ll see and hear much more about this work as it gets rolled out. We hope you are as excited as we are.

Read about the MHW15 launch here.

Get ready to rock it

Every year we are blown away by the creativity, commitment and enthusiasm that you bring to Mental Health Week. We can’t wait to see what you’ve got planned for this year.

Get started by downloading your event pack and registering your MHW15 event on the new website here

Corporate achievement award launch

Promoting mental wellbeing in the workplace is a major goal for MHW every year. Join Open Minds for a lunch with Brisbane’s corporate leaders at the launch of the Corporate Achievement Awards on 17 June 2015 at the Brisbane Marriott Hotel.

David Cooke Managing Director of Konica Minolta Australia is guest speaker and Kathy McLeish from ABC News Brisbane is MC.

Not to be missed. Book your table here

Nominate

Do you value mental health? Are you a leading Queensland workplace when it comes to promoting the positive mental health of your employees? Know a corporate that should be nominated?

There are many categories in the Awards for outstanding service. More on the Awards here

Early intervention: new directions for children and young people

The Commission is working with a range of partners on new and more effective approaches for schools and health services to work together and better understand, identify and intervene early in mental health issues and disorders affecting children and young people.

We held a workshop at late March with more than 60 health, education and community participants. Read their feedback on future directions here

Drugs and alcohol

Our apologies

We inadvertently left out mention of all the working group partners that created the AOD Treatment Service Delivery Framework for 2015. The group included QNADA, QAIHC, QISMC, Dovetail and the Department of Health. The framework describes the ‘common ground’ underpinning AOD treatment across the State, and offers a ‘critical reflection tool’ for individual workers and services to enhance their practice. Your work contributes to and reflects the ‘vibrant, skilled and dedicated AOD treatment sector’. Read it here

Extra wellness grants

We’ve announced another $515,000 in extra Stronger Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Grants, taking our total investment for local and community organisations to around $1.03 million. We’re excited to see many worthwhile projects coming to fruition. Read the media release and recipients

Save the date. Applications for Round 3 will be called in October 2016.

Meet the Advisory Council

Congratulations Luke Terry

Advisory Council member Luke Terry has been awarded a scholarship from Social Ventures Australian to attend Harvard’s ‘Strategic Perspectives in Non-profit Management’ course later this year. Luke received the award in recognition of his leadership in social innovation through the range of social enterprise and community initiatives he has spearheaded across the Toowoomba and Darling Downs region.

Read more about Luke and the work of Toowoomba Clubhouse

Leader, activist, now author

Advisory Council member Professor Gracelyn Smallwood has published her first book — Indigenist Critical Realism: Human Rights and First Australians’ well-being. The book reveals the reality of non-wellbeing of Indigenous Australians, explores the personal experience of Gracelyn’s family as an example of what has happened to many Indigenous families, critically examines the views of well-known Indigenous and non-Indigenous commentators such as Noel Pearson, Peter Sutton, Gary Johns and Keith Windschuttle, then analyses contemporary events such as the Hindmarsh Island Affair and the Northern Territory Intervention that have shaped the public consciousness on Indigenous issues. Congratulations Gracelyn. Read more

Welcome Neeraj Gill

We’d like to welcome Assoc Professor Neeraj Gill to the Commission as a consultant psychiatrist. Neeraj has been actively involved in advocating for rural mental health issues at local, state and national level. His research interests include human rights, mental health legislation, rural and Indigenous mental health, suicide prevention and physical/psychiatric co-morbidities.

He is pursuing his Doctorate of Public Health on 'human rights of people with mental disabilities'.

Neeraj will be working with us in conjunction with his other roles as the Medical Director of Adult and Older Persons Mental Health at Gold Coast Health and Associate Professor of Rural Psychiatry in the Rural Clinical School of the University of Queensland.

Wellbeing

Gregor Henderson video

If you missed Gregor Henderson speaking on wellbeing in April, we have posted Gregor and Jack Heath’s video presentations here

Read about where we’re at in the development of the Awareness, Prevention and Early Intervention Action Plan here

Sector News

Resources

• Youth Video Launched by Victim Assist — Young people who are victims of personal crime in Queensland have the right to support and assistance - this is the message that Victim Assist is promoting through its new youth video. Watch the video here
• Human Services Quality Framework (HSQF) — the Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services' are implementing the new quality assurance framework for measuring and improving human services in planned phases over three years to 2016. Find out more here
• ‘Learning from lived experience of suicide’ Webinar — Suicide Prevention Australia’s Lived Experience Network webinar featured survivor Kevin Hines, ‘Guardian of the Golden Gate Bridge’ Sergeant Kevin Briggs and SPA Lived Experience Network Leadership Group members Allan Sparkes CV and Hayley Purdon. Watch here

Events

• 12 June 2015, Nursing Innovation Exchange — CheckUP in partnership with Queensland Health's Nursing and Midwifery Office, will be hosting the inaugural Nursing Innovation Exchange, on Friday 12 June 2015.
• 24-26 June 2015, Suicide and Self Harm Prevention Conference 2015 — Cairns. The Commissioner is a keynote speaker. Register here
• 26-29 July 2015, National Suicide Prevention Conference, Hobart — Themed ‘Changing Systems, Changing Lives’ the annual conference and workshops aims to benefit those who are working in, and supported by, suicide prevention programs. Register here
• 15-28 August 2015, TheMHS — Canberra. Early bird registrations available until 10 July 2015. This year the Commission has sponsored an extra two bursaries for people from Queensland to attend the conference. For more information or to register visit the TheMHS website
• 11-12 September 2015 PTSD Forum 2015 — Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. Register here

Give your feedback

Take five minutes to give us your feedback!

• Evaluate the Gregor Henderson events here