clinical focus
in-house to deal with residents with mental
healthcare needs.
For example, in many of the US states,
some of the larger residential aged care
facilities must have a social worker. It’s
mandated, it’s a part of the code. In
Australia, there’s no such code, there’s no
necessity for residential aged care facilities
to employ their own mental healthcare
counsellors, psychologists or social
workers. This is a gap we have to address.
Your university, Swinburne, has an Elders
at Ease (ELATE) program. You picked
up a grant last year for nearly a million
dollars to look at improving mental
health services, and ran a trial with
500 residents from over 40 facilities in
Victoria. Do you have any early findings?
The ELATE program is just about to start.
In fact, we haven’t begun recruiting for that
specific project, but over the nine years,
we’ve done pilot projects along those lines.
The million dollars or so we’ve just won will
allow us to evaluate it properly.
Over the last few years, we’ve been
able to work within residential care
facilities where we’ve put postgraduate
psychology and counselling students, and
undergraduate social worker students, in
residential care facilities to work with not
just residents, but the families and staff.
We’ve found the best approach to
helping residents is to work systemically.
That is, to not just work one-on-one with
the residents, but to work hand-in-hand
with the residents’ extended care network.
We found that just in a few sessions, the
people who have received the counselling
have significantly reduced their depression,
have significantly improved in terms of the
quality of life, have felt less anxious, and
in some cases, have felt less suicidal. We
know there are therapies that work and
can work, but it’s such a pity that, at least
currently, the system doesn’t mandate that
kind of service within care.
How much do you expect mental
health to be talked about at the royal
commission going forward? Do you
expect to see any changes after the
commission concludes?
There are two very significant events
happening in Australia right now. The first
is the royal commission, and I do think
mental healthcare needs and gaps are
going to be talked about.
The second event is that in the 2018 May
budget, there was a provision of something
like $80 million reserved for mental health
services within residential care facilities. I
think pre-empting the royal commission,
we will see Primary Health Networks
(PHNs) tendering for services for mental
healthcare needs to be addressed within
residential care facilities.
What does this mean? I think in the next
few months, we’ll start to see tenders
where PHNs are going to be calling for
psychologists, social workers, occupational
therapists and mental healthcare nurses to
work within residential care facilities. As I see
it, this is a very optimistic time for mental
healthcare within residential facilities. ■
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