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Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
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Thursday, August 18, 2011
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Mental health organisations split over new funding
Mental health organisations have welcomed the government’s additional $430 million funding but are split on how effective the extra funding will be in terms of service delivery.
Psychologist Vanessa Rendalls said “I think it will be a lot harder to access; you need to meet certain criteria to be eligible and they [Medicare] will be giving fewer sessions.”
“The theory is more people will be able to use it because you’re providing less sessions but the degree of mental health has to be greater,” she said.
SANE Australia’s Executive Director, Barbara Hocking said “We are now at first base, and well positioned to make a real difference to the lives of people with mental illness and their families, but we still have a long way to go.”
According to SANE Australia, some of the challenges include getting states and territories on board, refining the proposed models of integrated community care and ensuring that there are enough trained mental health and other workers to deliver these programs.
Ms Rendalls, a member of the Australian Psychologists Society (APS), said that previously people were able to get 12 sessions with a psychologist but under new funding rules this has been halved.
She also believes it may become more difficult to access the funding.
“You have to get what’s called a mental health care plan [from a G.P]… and now doctors have been told to be more frugal about who they send so it’s really hard for people to get a referral – unless you know the right thing to say, it’s really hard.” she said.
Executive director of the APS, Professor Lyn Littlefield said that government plans to reduce the number of sessions will impact upon the effectiveness for the people who need it most.
“…reducing the number of sessions available for treatment will decrease the quality of overall service provision. It is a decision that needs to be reviewed.” she said.
Murriwatch - Helping the community
Murriwatch Chief Executive Officer Ken Georgetown said the staff of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander support centre are doing a great job supporting clients across a wide range of programs including a homeless assistance program and cell visitors program.
“We’ve got a number of programs including the diversion from custody program, which is like a sobering up centre where we look after clients who have been diverted from police custody for public intoxication,” he said.
“We take them from there [the watch house] and look after them while they’re sobering up. It’s a 24/7 set up; we bring them into a better environment where we can give them a meal and a bit of support, and a referral straight after that.”
The unit operates in Brisbane, Townsville, Palm Island and Mackay.
Mr Georgetown said “We really just go out there and do the business and try and educate people. Part of my role is to go out and inform about what we do.”
Speaking of the Cell Visitors Services, he said “Our cell visitors are authorised to go into watch-houses. Once a person identifies that they are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, then we encourage them to ring us and we can assist that person. They can get pretty agitated and we try and break that down and talk to the client.”
Murriwatch also assist indigenous and non indigenous homeless persons.
He said “Our outreach team will go out into the public spaces and look for our lot and try and refer them back to the hostel and then we can stabilise them with our case management team; within three to twelve months we can stabilise their situation; get them back into paying rent; get them some food because we have a cook at the hostel who also cooks for the clients. We don’t just deal with our mob – we deal with non-indigenous people too.”
Further Flood Funding
Local not-for-profit small business support groups are being urged to take advantage of additional flood recovery funding from the Federal government.
Bernie Ripoll, Federal Member for Oxley said groups who provide services to local small businesses should apply for grants of up to $100,000 under the Australian Government’s Small Business Advisory Services (SBAS) program.
“I know they’ve been working extraordinary hours to help our small businesses recover from the floods and this funding boost is a practical way of giving them that extra support they deserve – and need – to provide additional services to help disaster affected businesses get back on their feet.” he said.
Mr Ripoll said that groups providing services such as business mentoring, financial accounting and marketing plans are eligible to apply.
“Any small business support organization; groups that do work for small business are being given funding so they can go and assist small business.”
“The government departments and people who are providing the grants, they’re out there actively speaking with small businesses to make sure they know that there are funds available.”
The aim of the SBAS program is to maximise small business growth and success by better access to information and advice and improve the business skills of small businesses.
Proposals funded by the program include business planning advice, advice on loans and banking products, and mentoring for businesses.
Graham Grundy, President of the Mens Section of the Jindalee Bowls Club said that“Selected grantees can expand and strengthen their capacity to provide additional low cost business advisory services.” Mr Grundy also said that while the club did not use small business services, they had accessed several other grants offered by the government.
Mr Ripoll said the response to SBAS grants has so far been “overwhelming” and that he was “pretty happy with the results.”
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