What is Mental Health?
Mental health consists of the psychological, emotional and the social well-being. It leaves impact on the way people feel, think and act. It further helps in determining the way people handle the stress, at the same time related to others, and makes choices too. The mental health is something extremely important in almost every stage beginning from then childhood to throughout the adulthood. Various factors contribute to the problems related to the mental health such as the biological factors, the brain chemistry, genes (Awaworyi Churchill, Farrell & Smyth, 2019). The life experiences also can leave deep impact on the mental well-being such as abuse or trauma. The family history can further create the issues related with mental health problems. In simple words, the mental health is the cognitive, emotional and behavioural well-being of people. It is also referred to something related with the absence of sanity or having mental disorder. The mental disorder can affect the everyday relationships, the daily life of people and the physical health too.
As per the Medilexicon’ medical dictionary, the mental health is related with the behavioural, social and emotional aspect of a human entity. It is a state of the psychological well-being that is achieved through the satisfactory integration of a person’ instinctual drives which is acceptable to the social milieu having a proper balance of work and the leisure pursuits (Bentley et al., 2016). On the other hand, WHO defines it as a particular state of well-being where one individual realizes about his/her own capabilities and can easily adjust with the usual stresses of the life. This essay will deal with outlining the current Australian social situation along with the current social policies related to the mental health. The essay will also make references to any of the historical events that have left impact on any policy based on the topic of mental health. The essay will also make recommendations for the future services and policies for promoting a positive social change in the context of mental health.
The issue of mental health is quite widespread in Australia as compared to the other countries. The mental health condition of the people of Australia can leave greater impact on the social, personal and the economic areas. The reports from the year 2007 National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing shows that between the age group of 16 to 85, five people experience different types of mental health issues such as mood disorders, anxiety in a single year. In the early adulthood years, the rates of prevalence are high that is a period when people start establishing independent careers and families. Another study that was conducted in the year 1998 among the age group of 4-17 found that 14 % of them suffer from mental illness. It has also been found that, there are some affective disorders which are the most common leaving impact on the adults every year (Lawrence et al., 2015).These common disorder are often referred to as the ‘high prevalence’ disorders covering diverse conditions such as obsessive compulsive disorder, post- traumatic stress disorder , bipolar disorder, depression and the like. These disorders have different types of requirements and results.
Current Mental Health Situation in Australia
The mental illness can also impact the lives of people at varying stages depending on the level of severity. Almost 3 % of the Australian adults suffer from severe disorders , have intensity of the symptoms, the degree of the disability caused and the duration of the illness. This particular group particularly represents almost half of the Australians. More than 50 % of the Australians suffer from psychotic illness, the bipolar affective disorders and schizophrenia primarily (Bowman, McKinstry & McGorry, 2017).The surveys have found that most of the people are suffering from mental ill-health having its roots in the adolescence or childhood. Surprisingly, mental health is found to be the foremost cause behind disability in the context of Australia increasing 24% of the non-fatal disorders. The examination of Productivity Commission has found that people having mental health issue along with other six disorders such as cardiovascular, cancer, mental illness, arthritis, diabetes and major injury are less likely to be involved in the labour force (Gardner et al., 2018).The Australian data also shows that people with mental illness enhance the prison and homeless population. Almost 75 % of homeless adults suffer from mental disorders. As per the Australian studies, almost 40 % of the prisoners are mental illness patients and almost 20 % of them are influenced by such severe disorders (Rosenberg,2017).
In the year 1992, the health ministers of the states of Auatralia, the territories along with the federal governments have endorsed first National Mental Health Policy in Australia. The primary principles of the policy indicate the protection of consumer rights. It has set some national standard of service having mainstreamed the services related with mental health and general health services too. It helps in integrating the community mental health services and ensures the continuity of the care, having linked the social and disability services with the metal health. The Australian government has also released a five –year based National Mental Health Plan that is well accompanied by some additional federal funding to be implemented at all the federal levels and states too. There are some other policies and plans designed for the improvement of mental health among the Australians. The Fifth National Mental Health Plan is recently being hugely developed by the AHMAC or Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council, the Mental Drug and MHDAPC or Alcohol Principal Committee (Gardner et al., 2018). The Fifth Plan has articulated the nationally agreed areas of priority and actions for achieving an integrated mental health system. The Australian government has also decided to develop more efficient and effective mental health system which can improve the lives of common people from the risks of mental health.
Social Policies Related to Mental Health in Australia
The country is found to have been managing the mental health related issues since the arrival of fist fleet in the year 1788. It specifically happened with the arrival of the convicts that placed all the deemed ‘insane’ into the nearby locker. In the year 1811, the first Australian psychiatric facility began. Before this, the individuals having mental illness were together placed with the criminals and the convicts. The introduction of the psychiatric facility the mentally ill people were seen as separate from the convicts. In the Australian mental health history, the deinstitutionalisation of 1992 is memorable (Bentley et al., 2016). After the release of the Richmond report that used to investigate the abuses and rumours along with injustices to such patients under these institutions. It took a decade to make the change happen and the first mental health care plan introduced in the year 1992 that expanded to five mental health care plans in the recent years.
- The mental health is considered to be the pre-requisite of good health and the mental illness has been identified as the growing reason for the Australian morbidity. The promotion of mental health needs the proper understanding of what consists of the mental health. In the late 1990s , the Australian government realised the need for huge focus on mental disorder prevention and promotion of mental well-being through the health policies. There are organization such as Victoria Health and Beyond Blue hat have taken up the initiative of promoting mental well-being(Meurk et al., 2015).They have begun the first steps towards the addressing the stigmatisation of mental illness. The promotional activities and the campaigns have to be run from the local to the national level. The promotion of the policies related to mental health should be done in the business sectors too. The education and promotion of the mental health policies can leave a positive and significant impact on different aspects of the mental health. It is recommended that the scope of integrating the mental health promotion , education and prevention in the mental health program that is to be explored by the different departments and infused in the future programs.
- The second recommendation is to enhance the focus on service offerings of young people and children having mental illness who live in the remote areas. It has been found that there are different types of mental health disorders rooted in the adolescent or childhood period. The statistics also show that in children, mental illness has covered almost 14 % of children. In this regard, it is recommended that there should be deeper investigation into the service demand from this particular population relevant to the remote locations (Chen et al., 2017). The government departments should take up this initiative and roll out some appropriate services in locations of extreme need. The treatment for this particular age group is quite vital and it should focus on young people and children in the rural communities.
- The third recommendation is related to the consideration of innovative modes and service delivery. In the Fourth National Mental Health Plans, one such priority is to make use of innovative approaches in the service delivery. Some emerging technologies are becoming extremely commonplace to strengthen the communication. The technologies are skype, video conferencing and other web-based treatments. The remotes areas should be facilitated with such e-solutions that can improve their life styles and the professionals’ too. The integration of such solutions in the mental health care programs can easily improve the condition. It can reduce the future rates of mental illness in the Australian context.
- The next recommendation will be on the workforce. The workforce guidelines should be reviewed for checking the eligibility of mental health professionals. The workforce is usually formed of a range of staffs having diverse set of skills that can be generally defined for covering mental health nursing and other health professionals. There are a range of factors which can contribute to the workforce issues in terms of retention(Stocks, Gonzalez-Chica & Hay, 2019). In regard to the current workforce, it can be said that the departments should consider some new workforce models along with some innovative ideas in the national agenda context and rural needs. The workforce guidelines can define the eligibility of the mental health professionals who are employed under the awareness programs of mental health.
- Next, there should be some improvement on the data collection systems. The departments should identify some measures of access and results in order to inform the performance of mental health program. There should also be investigation of the opportunities that standardise the measures across many mental health programs. The departments should investigate the feasible options for the development of standardised data set in order to provide comparable data for repeatable analysis of the program (Van et al., 2019). The opportunities also do exist for utilising one such system to collect data from the mental health programs needs to be investigated too.
- The flow of communication should also be strengthened after identifying the methods at all levels covering national, state and local level. The stakeholder relationship and engagement is the key for a successful program. Networking should be improvised among the primary health organization to accentuate rates of emergency services. The departmental officers at the national level should ensure the development of strong relationships with the government departments of Australia along with the state and territory departments.
- Lastly, the government departments should consider providing a continued funding for the mental health programs which can improve the mental health of the residents. The additional funds can strengthen the programs for further improving the services related to mental health and meet the requirements of Australian people.
On a concluding note , it can be said that recently, Australian has been considered as one of the leading mental health reforms and management too. The government is working really hard for improving the way they can. There are some rural areas in the country, where there is struggle to find the appropriate treatment for their sufferings,. The government should incorporate policies, train the workforce for providing optimum service to the people of Australia, and improve their way of living.
References
Awaworyi Churchill, S., Farrell, L., & Smyth, R. (2019). Neighbourhood ethnic diversity and mental health in Australia. Health economics, 28(9), 1075-1087.
Bentley, R. J., Pevalin, D., Baker, E., Mason, K., Reeves, A., & Beer, A. (2016). Housing affordability, tenure and mental health in Australia and the United Kingdom: a comparative panel analysis. Housing studies, 31(2), 208-222.
Bowman, S., McKinstry, C., & McGorry, P. (2017). Youth mental ill health and secondary school completion in Australia: time to act. Early intervention in Psychiatry, 11(4), 277-289.
Chen, W., Hall, B. J., Ling, L., & Renzaho, A. M. (2017). Pre-migration and post-migration factors associated with mental health in humanitarian migrants in Australia and the moderation effect of post-migration stressors: findings from the first wave data of the BNLA cohort study. The Lancet Psychiatry, 4(3), 218-229.
Gardner, B., Alfrey, K. L., Vandelanotte, C., & Rebar, A. L. (2018). Mental health and well-being concerns of fly-in fly-out workers and their partners in Australia: a qualitative study. BMJ open, 8(3), e019516.
Lawrence, D., Johnson, S., Hafekost, J., Boterhoven de Haan, K., Sawyer, M., Ainley, J., & Zubrick, S. R. (2015). The mental health of children and adolescents: Report on the second Australian child and adolescent survey of mental health and wellbeing.
Meurk, C., Whiteford, H., Head, B., Hall, W., & Carah, N. (2015). Media and evidence-informed policy development: the case of mental health in Australia. Contemporary Social Science, 10(2), 160-170.
Rosenberg, S. (2017). Challenges and opportunities for community mental health in Australia. Debra Parnell, 9.
Stocks, N. P., Gonzalez-Chica, D., & Hay, P. (2019). Impact of gastrointestinal conditions, restrictive diets and mental health on health-related quality of life: cross-sectional population-based study in Australia. BMJ open, 9(6), e026035.
Van Spijker, B. A., Salinas-Perez, J. A., Mendoza, J., Bell, T., Bagheri, N., Furst, M. A., … & Salvador-Carulla, L. (2019). Service availability and capacity in rural mental health in Australia: Analysing gaps using an Integrated Mental Health Atlas. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 53(10), 1000-1012.
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