Sophie Conlon
A NEW mental health care program will soon open in Mount Gambier, which hopes to provide easier access to and improved mental health care in the region.
Mind Australia will be operating the free Connect service from March and state manager Brett Williams said the program would provide care in a clients home or a safe space, outside of the traditional counselling office or hospital settings which could provide comfort to patients.
“Particularly within the hospital, if you are feeling mentally drained and high levels of mental health issues and you feel quite distressed it’s not a great environment to be in, it’s noisy and there’s a lot going on,” he said.
“By offering a service that can hopefully direct people away from that and provide them support, there is greatly less of a chance of them re-presenting to the emergency department or other services, this provides very clear and direct benefit to the client.
“The face-to-face supports are done either in a person’s home or another place in the community where they feel comfortable meeting and talking to someone.”
In providing a safe environment, Mr Williams said the service would be fully staffed by mental health professionals who had overcome their own mental illnesses.
“They are able to build relationships with people based on that shared experience and provide that support based on that shared experience,” he said.
“It’s about that relationship, not about one person being the expert and providing concrete advice on what to do.”
He said Mind Australia had provided this type of peer delivered service in Adelaide and had seen great results.
“We’re very committed at Mind to the utilisation of a lived experience workforce to deliver our supports,” he said.
Mr Williams said there would be a number of ways to be referred to the program.
“We expect major referrals to come through other service providers, but we are open to people self-referring,” he said.
