Te Pou’s latest e-bulletin reports on the development of a three year work plan to implement the Ministry of Health’s Mental Health and Addictions Service Development Plan that was released last year.
Click here to read the latest Te Pou E-Bulletin
As reported in the E-Bulletin, the work plan focuses on the following priorities
- “Co-existing problems – including the child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) workforce, building on the past 12 months of mental health and addictions skill development work.
- Drivers of crime – scoping workforce needs for the implementation of new Government initiatives such as youth mental health, drug courts, aged care, vulnerable children’s drug testing and justice. A training framework for the sector will be developed.
- Children of parents with mental illness or addiction – scoping workforce needs based on evidence and international resources and identifying required competencies.
- Suicide prevention – with a specific focus on establishing a continuing education module for GPs and primary nurses.
- Maori addictions strategy – developing a comprehensive strategy to build a workforce that is responsive to the needs of Maori with addictions issues.
- Organisational and professional development – with emphasis on delivering better services for Maori and working with services to improve workforce performance. This work will build on Let’s get real, outcomes and KPI information, workforce planning, implementing seclusion reduction initiatives, leadership development programmes and ongoing skill development.
- Assessing effectiveness – ensuring evidence-based practice remains a high priority for all workers with a strong focus on evaluation of initiatives in seclusion reduction and talking therapies.
- Regional workforce planning – focused strongly on workforce information, analysis and stocktake of data.
- Ongoing development of web resources to support workforce development.
Alongside these priority areas, Te Pou will continue to focus on:
- acute services
- increasing the use of talking therapies
- leadership and professional supervision
- International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership (IIMHL)
- Pacific mental health and addiction workforce development through Le Va
- leadership on all the knowledge exchange and information areas.”
Such efforts to assess sector effectiveness and workforce needs are hopefully a first step on the way to increasing systemic capacity to provide effective psycho-social recovery options and remove barriers to their accessibility. Engage Aotearoa has heard reports from service-users in the community to suggest there is currently up to an 8 month wait to see a psychologist at some community mental-health centres and a search for psychologists or psychotherapists in a rural area like Kaitaia often reveals that there are few or none at all in some places. A mental-health service stocktake is very much in need.
.
