Brief Covid-19 Update and some GOOD NEWS!
Jennifer McGrath (A/ Mental Health Commissioner), Shauna Gaebler, Roger Cook MLA and Alanna Clohesy (Parliamentary Secretary) at the Royal Perth Hospital Safe Haven Café site
Quick Update from our CEO
Hi everyone,
We understand the feelings of uncertainty, distress and anxiety that many are feeling due to COVID-19 – we are experiencing these alongside you.
I encourage you to take a look at our updated CoMHWA website with shared information, resources, and ideas. It includes regular updates, wellbeing resources and links to reliable external sources in relation to mental health, housing, NDIS, medicine and more.
www.comhwa.org.au/covid-19
We are developing online training and focus groups to help you build skills and to assist us in hearing what you need to support your mental health and wellbeing. We will keep you up to date with new developments as soon as possible.
CoMHWA is ensuring the voices of people with personal experience of mental health issues is listened to, understood and acted upon throughout WA. We have been invited to sit on the Statewide Mental Health and AOD Taskforce which is an opportunity to influence key decision makers and be informed of the bigger picture. I have also been liaising with the A/Mental Health Commissioner, the Parliamentary Secretary, our fellow consumer peak bodies in the National Alliance, WACOSS, Office of Chief Psychiatrist and many others.
CoMHWA continues to gather and raise your views to enable us to offer informed and widely supported solutions for change.
We will keep you regularly updated with our work via the newsletter, social media platforms and website and welcome your input and perspectives.
Shauna Gaebler
CEO
Exciting Times Ahead for CoMHWA
While our inboxes and news feeds are currently full of Coronavirus news, CoMHWA would like to take a moment and share some exciting updates with you all.
It gives me great pleasure to announce that CoMHWA has been the recipient of two NDIA grants under the Information, Linkages and Capacity scheme, meaning we have two new projects in the pipeline.
Life Launchpad: Peers building skills and supports to live equal, empowered lives
Life Launchpad will build the capacity of people with psychosocial disabilities by ensuring they have knowledge, skills and confidence they need to set and achieve their goals.
This project will provide an innovative blend of peer-facilitated, strengths-based skills building, offering workshops, network facilitation, peer support and peer mentoring, delivered flexibly via online, face-to-face and group peer support activities. The Life Launchpad program will be based on a peer community network model for and by peers with a shared interest in personal empowerment.
ASPIRE: Advancing Successful Peer Inclusion and Readiness for Employment
The Aspire Project will create new employment pathways for 50 people with psychosocial disability into peer work roles in Western Australia through a partnership of people with disability and employers to achieve workplace inclusion, employability and job creation.
Employers will be assisted with workplace readiness and inclusion through a readiness toolkit, pilot site testing of the toolkit and access to skilled disability peer work student placements. Individuals will be assisted through access to a new skills-based training pathway for peer work in disability settings, work-based placements and coaching in employment goals.
CoMHWA is pleased to announce that we will be partnering on this project with 360 Health and Community (360), a major disability provider, and in collaboration with a network of employers in the disability and health sectors where people with psychosocial disability are engaged.
CoMHWA Growth
With two new projects commencing, and continuation of our Systemic Advocacy, Education and Training and Peer Support work, we have sadly outgrown our Cannington office. I am delighted to say that CoMHWA will be relocating to a new premises at a more central location with larger training facilities.
We will update you all on this move in due course.
Accreditation
We have recently achieved accreditation with the Australian Service Excellence Standards. We were fortunate to receive funding from the Mental Health Commission to support our staff to undertake this process. The Australian Service Excellence Standards (ASES) is a quality improvement program that aims to assist non-government organisations improve their business systems, management practices and service delivery.
ASES is internationally accredited in the International Society for Quality in Health and Social Care. The current accreditation will last for 3 years.
Safe Haven Café Announcement
Two Safe Haven Cafés will open in Western Australia this year, providing an alternative to emergency departments for people with mental health issues experiencing distress. CoMHWA was invited to speak at Minister Cook’s press conference on 10th March in regards to the importance of having these safe havens around the state.
The Safe Haven Cafés will be located at Royal Perth Hospital and Kununurra District Hospital, and are expected to open by mid-2020. Safe Haven Cafés work alongside emergency departments during after-hours and are for people experiencing mental health issues. They offer peer-based support for those who may otherwise attend emergency departments, but do not need intensive clinical and medical support.
Please click here to read the full media release from Minister Cook.
Please click here to read CoMHWA’s report on Alternatives to Emergency Departments, compiled from focus groups and forums mid last year. This report has helped to shape these Safe Haven Café’s, gaining perspectives from people with a lived experience of mental health distress.