Strategies for promoting good mental health and supporting the affected families
Discuss about the Psychiatric or Substance Misuse Treatment Services.
The state department of Victoria is focused on improving the Victorian healthcare system by positively changing the operations and the way of doing things in the health sector. Currently, mental health problems and associated disorders are on the rise worldwide. World health organization WHO (2011), predictions showed that depression alone will constitute the second major cause of such diseases in the world by the year 2020. For this reason, the Australian government is keen on addressing the factors causing the diseases in order to improve the human health and the general well-being. Of all the diseases and disorders, mental illnesses are not only common in most parts of the world but also, their social, human and economic consequences are devastating. This is particularly due to its association with alcohol and other drugs use whose consumptions is on the rise globally (Drake, O’Neal and Wallach 2016). As such, the government is committed to addressing both the mental health as well as alcohol and other drugs use or abuse. Several programs are on the run with the aim of devising systems that will respond to people’s needs, improve the quality of service delivery by medical practitioners, expand the capacity of the available workforce as well as improving on transparency and accountability when handling sensitive health-related tasks. This paper focuses on the Victorian mental health strategies, policy, and plans, achievements, and benefits as well as the extent to which these strategies have improved the level of service delivery to the people of Victoria.
The strategies by the government aimed at promoting good mental health to the Victorians as well as supporting the families adversely affected by the poor social and emotional well-being. Fighting mental illnesses starts by preventing their spread or by elevating their causes. The mental health strategy deploys specialist who is well conversant with both treatment and prevention. Prevention focuses on the youth who are the most vulnerable to alcohol and other drugs abuse. Despite the fact that different groups are more likely to suffer from mental illnesses subject to their vulnerability, unfavorable environments, social and economic conditions, the program aims at creating and maintaining a high level of accessibility to mental services to all Victorians. However, more intensive actions are directed towards the socially and economically disadvantaged groups (Manning et al., 2015).
The mental health strategy is of fundamental importance to the people of Victoria. First, every citizen requires a good mental health to thrive and secondly, mental health sickness can affect anyone regardless of the age or economic background. Indeed not all mental cases are as a result of substance abuse but instead could be biological. For that reason, victims have the right to access to specialized services and treatments. With regards to mental health, we all have varying levels of need and at times, the conditions range from short-term reactions for example relationships conflicts, grieve due to loss of loved ones and work-related stress to other complex situations. With time and the necessary support, such mental conditions are bound to fade away (Manning, Smith and Mazerolle 2013). Such a treatment strategy among other initiatives by the government, for example, universal education, healthy families, and liveable cities all acts as the building blocks to better mental health to the residents of Victoria and Australia at large.
The importance of mental health strategy in Victoria
As the guiding principles, the government developed a 10-year plan in 2015 with the aim of reforming the past for a better future as well as guiding investments for an efficient mental health care to the country’s residents. Despite the dynamic world, we are in today, the strategy is set on systematic and consistent approach and this has greatly helped the design, the implementation and the development of service delivery. The strategy is consumer-oriented, involves carers and family members, is anchored on medical, biological, social and psychosocial factors affecting mental health and well-being, and is oriented towards personal recovery. Above all, it is evidence-based. Evidence-based practice is a process that integrates the best available evidence gathered through scientific research to guide medical practitioners. It brings together clinical expertise, patient values and external clinical evidence obtained from systemic research in the making of the decision about a patient’s treatment or care (McGorry, Bates and Birchwood 2013). Through this approach patient care has improved with more consistent positive outcomes because the current best evidence is used in deciding the treatment plan of an individual patient.
The outcomes of this program are that most people suffering from mental disorders have benefited from it positively. Though the change is gradual, a difference can be noted. The traditional systems are being oriented into completely new and different ways of working. Policies have changed with an annual report being produced and tabled to the parliament each year for evaluation purposes. The performance and progress of the strategy are being monitored from a close glance (Goodyear et al., 2015).
The key achievement and the benefits of the program includes availability of genuine choices about decisions affecting the mentally ill, accessibility to good mental health care to Victorians from childhood and throughout their lives, suicide is on the decline, health gap witnessed by the indigenous people is becoming nonexistent, there is greater and enhance participation from all spheres of life by the disadvantaged groups and reduction in health inequalities. Additionally, people suffering from trauma have been identified and can now easily access specialized care and treatment when they need it. However, more is yet to be done and within the ten years under which the programs are designed to be implemented much more will be achieved as well as streamlining any other outlier system (Bee, Brooks, Fraser, Lovell 2015).
By providing genuine choices to the victims of mental diseases, the strategy has greatly assisted in recovery as well as promoting human rights by allowing people to make a selection from the available list of options. This way, people are likely to rethink about their lives and to choose meaningful options as far as their future is concerned. The choices are however limited by the available services. Indeed not all conditions will present options but regardless of the situation, the strategy has empowered individuals to make decisions within their constraints. Most importantly, provision of such information to people as well as dedicated support is very crucial in one’s life (National Mental Health Commission 2014).
10-year plan for mental health reform
The most important benefit is that of supporting children and disadvantaged families. This serves as the foundation for a lifelong medical healthcare to the residents and their future generations. It is absolutely crucial that the government creates a safe environment for its residents so as to facilitate community development as well as economic growth.
The aboriginals in Australian have for a long time suffered; they appear to be discriminated and neglected of their healthcare rights. However, with this strategy, the wide gap has now been reduced with the aboriginals receiving medication like any other citizens. This has by far fought discrimination and racism in the country. As far as suicide deaths are concerned, mental health problems have in the past reported a significant contribution to the overall number of suicide cases experienced in Australia as well as the world in general. However, with the implementation of the mental health strategies, the rates of suicide deaths have significantly been reduced, meaning that the strategy is saving on more lives either directly or indirectly (Stolk, Minas and Klimidis 2014).
Despite the great and magnificent achievement by the government and the mental health strategy, a lot remains unachieved at the moment and more is to be done. The general well-being of the citizens is a function of the environment they live in. As far as mental health is concerned, a lot of factors contribute to its development and to curb such illnesses and disorders, the environmental factors should be taken under control (Treloar and Holt 2008). This will not only add to the achievement list but will reduce the government’s expenditure on treatment and prevention. Among the things to focus on, and which are the major causes of mental illnesses include prenatal exposure to alcohol and other drugs, discrimination, family violence and child abuse by parents, temperament, genetics, bullying in schools, self-esteem, developmental and other environmental factors. Some of the factors mentions can simply be controlled by laying down simple policies while others are complicated to handle. Growth and development are gradual and with time, application of the necessary measures as well as ensuring stringent adherence will bring about their control (Cummins et al., 2014).
As mentioned above, the best strategy to effectively and efficiently reduce mental related issues in the community is by intervening at the very early age. Studies also suggest that mental health in children and families be addressed through a combination of complementary systems or models. Such models include intensive outreach services to all the residents and particularly the vulnerable ones, age oriented patient and inpatient service days, and development of crisis intervention teams to respond to family violence and childhood abuse. Integration of such programs with patient treatment will help a great way in reducing the time needed to address mental health issues in the country (Le Boutillier et al., 2015)
References
Bee, P., Brooks, H., Fraser, C., & Lovell, K. (2015). Professional perspectives on service user and carer involvement in mental health care planning: a qualitative study. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 52(12), 1834-1845.
Cummins, R. A., Woerner, J., Gibson, A., Weinberg, M., Collard, J., & Chester, M. (2014). Australian Unity Wellbeing Index Survey 10. Australian Centre for Quality of Life, Deakin University, Melbourne, Report, 10.
Drake, R. E., O’Neal, E. L., & Wallach, M. A. (2016). A systematic review of psychosocial research on psychosocial interventions for people with co-occurring severe mental and substance use disorders. Journal of substance abuse treatment, 34(1), 123-138.
Goodyear, M., Hill, T. L., Allchin, B., McCormick, F., Hine, R., Cuff, R., & O’hanlon, B. (2015). Standards of practice for the adult mental health workforce: Meeting the needs of families where a parent has a mental illness. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 24(2), 169-180.
Le Boutillier, C., Chevalier, A., Lawrence, V., Leamy, M., Bird, V. J., Macpherson, R., & Slade, M. (2015). Staff understanding of recovery-orientated mental health practice: a systematic review and narrative synthesis. Implementation Science, 10(1), 87.
Manning, M., Smith, C., & Mazerolle, P. (2013). The societal costs of alcohol misuse in Australia. Trends and issues in crime and criminal justice, (454), 1.
Manning, V., Strathdee, G., Best, D., Keaney, F., Bhui, K., & Gossop, M. (2015). Differences in mental health, substance use, and other problems among dual diagnosis patients attending psychiatric or substance misuse treatment services. Mental Health and Substance Use: dual diagnosis, 1(1), 54-63.
McGorry, P., Bates, T., & Birchwood, M. (2013). Designing youth mental health services for the 21st century: examples from Australia, Ireland and the UK. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 202(s54), s30-s35.
National Mental Health Commission. (2014). The national review of mental health programmes and services. Sydney: NMHC, 67.
Stolk, Y., Minas, I. H., & Klimidis, S. (2014). Access to mental health services in Victoria: A focus on ethnic communities. Victorian Transcultural Psychiatry Unit.
Treloar, C., & Holt, M. (2008). Complex vulnerabilities as barriers to treatment for illicit drug users with high prevalence mental health co-morbidities. Mental health and substance use: dual diagnosis, 1(1), 84-95.
World Health Organization. (2011). The World Health Report 2001: Mental health: new understanding, new hope. World Health Organization.
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