Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (12 March) . . Page.. 902 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

able to attend CIT English classes, appeal her Centrelink decision, access counselling in relation to the violence she had experienced and make contact with mental health workers.

However, without some ongoing and transitional support, Shannon was not able to successfully manage the move to independent accommodation and her life became increasingly unmanageable.

They are just two examples, which I think show very clearly what the purpose of outreach workers is and how critical they will be in people's lives. We are not going to get anywhere in mental health until we start to accept that all of us to some extent have issues of mental illness in our lives and that we all need, or will need, mental health support in our lives.

Until all decision makers, all journalists and all celebrities can start to see themselves-see ourselves-as mental health consumers, there will never be enough resources at this level. A number of celebrities, bravely, do stand up and say they have a mental illness, but as a whole it is still too easy for us to turn our backs.

I am not saying that outreach work will deal with this, but it is part of the social context of mental illness and the background of how difficult it seems to get so-called "dual diagnosis"well treated. The recruitment of more mental health outreach workers is, however, only one element of what is required.

I recall an interesting article by a Mr Tom Stirling in the Canberra Times about a year ago, describing the work of official visitors. (Extension of time granted.) I have had several meetings with Mr Stirling myself. In the letter he spoke particularly of the role of official visitors, an occupation that he pursued back in the 70s under Brian Hennessy. He wrote very eloquently about the value of this work and of how it was about contact and support for people.

We can also talk about Rainbow, where they make meals, go to the coast and build lives with each other. That is so fundamental to feeling okay and getting on with your life. That is not about mental health outworkers, but very clearly it is about support, belonging and, to some extent, resilience.

Or we could look at the whole group house model and imagine what the lives of people are like who, with varying degrees of functionality, are thrown together and housed in Ngunnawal, let's say. How would the minister cope in a group house with Mr Pratt, Helen Cross and Greg Cornwell, for example, and with a support worker coming once a week to take them all shopping together? That might have problems.

At the clinical end of the spectrum, what we are doing is for people who really need institutional support: people who are in the PSU because there is nowhere else to go or people who have just left the PSU and now have nowhere. Mental health outreach workers may not be enough for those of us in that state.

Nonetheless, in the context of mental health services in the ACT, a clear message is coming both from research and from the sector, as noted in several reviews-that outreach work is an essential preventative and early intervention service. I am very pleased to support this motion.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .