03 August 2016
Establishing a therapeutic alliance, coordinating care options, liaising with other services to ensure the best health care is provided for someone with mental health problems, can be challenging across a range of practice settings, including in regional and rural Australia.
According to the University of South Australia’s Chair in mental Health Nursing, Professor Nicholas Procter, working together is critical to ensure better mental health outcomes for regional Australians.
“Like most effective caring, it is when all points in the community are meaningfully engaged that you get the best outcomes,” Prof Procter says.
And it is that belief, that is behind latest shared learning symposium – Engagement and Working Together.
The symposium will be held in Mt Gambier on August 4, to see at how the experiences of health care workers, policy makers, clinicians and recipients of mental health services and their families, can inform the development of better services and better support for people with mental health problems.
The symposium is presented by the Shared Learning in Clinical Practice Group in collaboration with the Mental Health and Substance Use research group at UniSA’s Sansom Institute for Health Research, SA Health and Mind Australia.
Prof Procter says one of the key topics of the symposium is person-centred care and recovery in the community.
“Mental health nursing today is very grounded in understanding the experiences of people with mental health problems and their families and friends so that the care we provide is respectful and personalised,” Prof Procter says.
“It can be the simplest things that can be the difference between a care plan that works and one that doesn’t, so it is vital that we are tuned in to the person we are helping. Coming together as practitioners gives us an opportunity to learn from each other’s experiences and that includes the experiences of people who have been receiving services and care.”
A keynote speaker at the event, Prof Procter says the symposium will also focus on stigma reduction and collaborative practice, resilience, recovery and respect.
Key speakers across the day include SA Health Chief Psychiatrist, Dr Aaron Groves; Director of Operations and Clinical Practice at Mind Australia (Vic), Bronwyn Lawman; and nurse practitioner-consultation liaison at Country Health SA Mental health Services, Leigh Peterson.
The symposium will be held at UniSAs Mt Gambier campus from 9 am to 4 pm and those wishing to attend can register online.
Media contact: Michèle Nardelli mobile: +61 418 823 673 email: michele.nardelli@unisa.edu.au
