National Mental Health Consumer & Carer Forum submission - submitted to the Senate Community Affairs Committee Enquiry into Commonwealth Funding and Administration of Mental Health Services.

Extract from Submission::
It will be imperative that the budget initiatives:

• support the implementation of the Fourth National Mental Health Plan in guiding recovery based approaches to mental health
• acknowledge the considerable change management initiatives required to implement a recovery approach to the development and implementation of mental health services
•  include effective mechanisms to utilise the expertise of mental health consumers and carers to inform the implementation process and involve them in service design and implementation in an ongoing way
• include effective mechanisms to better integrate with disability and community support services and draw from their experience in the provision of psychosocial disability support as an essential element of holistic mental health care
• are monitored closely to ensure that they are implemented in the most strategic way, capitalising on current evidence about what does and doesn’t work in mental health
• are informed by identified population needs
• become a very first step in ongoing reform in the sector, and that ongoing policy includes acknowledgment that more key areas will need to be addressed before the foundation for reforming the mental health system can be considered complete
• build on the COAG National Action Plan on Mental Health 2006-11 and any further COAG initiatives.

In this submission the NMHCCF will discuss the importance of the formation of partnerships with consumers and carers as part of a process to drive the implementation of recovery focussed reforms in mental health and will highlight some of the major gaps that need to be addressed to ensure that this first round of mental health reform initiatives are successful.

Download:: Carer Submission to Senate