Mental health issues

2014

whose undergraduate courses inspired the ideas for this research. I am also indebted to my fellow students including Alena Oaka,

National Advisory Council on Mental Health, 2009

Australia was the first nation in the world to recognise the need for a national effort to improve mental health services for people with mental illness. In 1992, the then Keating Government, with the agreement of all States and Territories, committed to the development and implementation of the first National Mental Health Strategy, based on an agreed national policy and a five year plan. In the seventeen years since, much has been achieved and much has changed about the way mental health services are delivered. Much has changed about the way Australians understand mental health and mental illness. However, the reporting of mental health issues, be it through the media, official reports or the professional literature, reflects the reality that the admirable intentions and genuine commitment of governments to reform services have left many vulnerable Australians without access to mental health care when they need it. Furthermore, it is clear that the greater vision of bringing people with mental illness successfully out of the ‘asylum’ and achieving integration with the broader community has not been realised. The evidence of the shortfall in policy intention and outcomes is there for all of us to see and for many to experience on a daily basis. Mental health, Indigenous health and dental health have been identified as the areas for urgent action in the recent National Health and Hospital Reform Commission’s final report A Healthier Future for All Australians. Each of these areas has the poorest health outcomes, the poorest resourcing and is the least functional in our national health system. The National Advisory Council on Mental Health endorses this view and we believe that a fundamental and transformative change in policy and approach – in the very way we conceptualise mental health and illness – is necessary to address the reality confronting us as a nation. A mentally healthy Australia is fundamental to our sustainability – economically, culturally and socially. Being mentally healthy means being in a state of complete mental, emotional and social wellbeing and this involves much more than merely ‘the absence of a mental illness’. Being mentally healthy is more than having access to a first rate person-centred health care service where and when we need it. Our governments’ investment in mental health need to evolve significantly: beyond the dominant focus on acute and sub-acute health care to include a more balanced emphasis on community care, a clear focus on managing the risk factors that can give rise to mental illness and a strengthening of the protective factors that prevent mental illness and promote mental health. To be successful, investment in a mentally healthy Australia needs to be embedded across a whole-of- government national policy framework. This means that we need to reflect a focus on mental health across the board – in our approach to education, social services, housing, employment, Indigenous affairs and so on – not just in our health or mental health services Our vision is that all Australians can live a mentally healthy life and be able to access quality mental health services and support when and where they need it. This discussion paper is about giving our mental health the priority it deserves and closing the mental health ‘aspiration gap’ – the distance between where we are now and where we know we should and can be. John Mendoza Chair, National Advisory Council on Mental Health

Mind, State and Society, 2021

1985

The refusal of power The purposes of therapy Supervision, personal therapy and radical therapists 156 6 The Community Strategy 165 Fetishising the community The penetration of community life Knowledge and control Resistance Conclusion 191 References Index 200 Many people have helped us with this book , either directly or indirectly, through inspiring us to think and work in particular ways. We would especially like to thank the other members of the Lambeth and Southwark Community Mental Health Group. We are also indebted to Paul Hoggart and Sue Holland, members of the Battersea Action and Counselling Centre, which was the predecessor of the Lambeth and Southwark group. Peter Leonard's comments after our first draft were very significant in enabling us to pull our ideas together more cogently and in forcing us to do some political work which had been carefully avoided. Steven Kennedy's editorial comments have also been helpful at various points along the way. Finally, we would like to thank julian and j 0' s housemates for putting up with our weekly meetings for so long, and julian's mum for lending us her house for a weekend that turned out to be important in the life of the group.

British journal of community nursing, 2024

Mental health services are under unprecedented pressure with overwhelming referrals and a current waiting list of 1.2 million people of all ages. The crossgovernment White Paper ‘No health without mental health’ was launched 12 years ago detailing the importance of wellbeing services in the creation of mentally healthy communities through health promotion and illness prevention. While primary care, community services and psychiatry are pivotal in the treatment of mental Illness/disorder, mental health care per se is on a continuum, and a great deal of work can be undertaken in communities by wellbeing services to prevent avoidable referrals. This paper proposes a broad framework of education and training for wellbeing/positive mental health services, primary and community care, and nurses working in Community Mental Health Treatment Teams and Home Treatment Teams to ensure all those working with potentially vulnerable adults and children are regulated and meet national standards for mandatory mental health education and training.

Psychiatric Bulletin, 2002

existing ones, such as community mental health teams. It would appear that often the combined effect of uplift and ring-fenced new money for NSF targets does not exceed the losses owing to cash releasing efficiencies and cost pressures. The credibility of NIMHE will perhaps be enhanced if there are increases in funding that seem real to those on the ground, so that NIMHE regional development centres are working in a climate of overall service expansion rather than of stasis or even cutbacks. Although the need for such an initiative can be questioned, now that it exists it is in the interests of mental health services, and of the people who use them, that NIMHE succeeds. Its early priorities should be to define and develop its relationships with the numerous agencies with which it must work, to manage expectations of what it can achieve, and how quickly, down to realistic levels and to win the hearts and minds of front-line staff.

The Lancet, 1955

The work of Smith and Smith has been considerably criticised. I have attempted a summary of this criticism 11 while jlarrian 10 has stated that he does not find evidence

Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 1949

1994

In April, 1992 Australian health ministers met to discuss and ultimately implement a National Mental Health Policy. The perception was that the Australian mental health system was inadequately serving the needs of the Australian population and the mentally ill. It was a perception later supported and elaborated upon by the HREOC with the tabling of the Burdekin Report. Mental health is a growing area of concern and until 1994 had been a responsibility largely adopted by the States. However, the intervention of the Commonwealth government marks a new direction; moreso a developing shift in the power relations of governments, service providers, health organisations and workers and the community at large. The National Mental Health policy is a microcosm of the broader trends of social change and whilst it appears to bea change which intends to serve the interests of the mentally ill it may well havemore insidious effects upon the broader population.