The ‘Right care, first time, where you live’ Program launched the Great Southern Primary Health Care Network’s systems model of the youth mental health system for the Great Southern region. It’s been wonderful to collaborate with the Great Southern PHN and the community, particularly the young people with lived experience who were involved in the development of the tool.
It was exciting to see how the community embraced the systems model and see its value and potential. We were able to show the impact that the interventions that we have mapped out could have and what it looks like when you are trying to determine where to expand and grow in the future.
Danny Rock, of the Western Australian Primary Health Alliance says of the systems modelling tool: “That strikes me about the tool, and it's something that strikes me lots to do with mental health, is nobody actually thinks about where the value is created. Value is created at the interface between a practitioner and a person in need. And I think the tool does that. It's one of the few tools I've seen where that central focus is on the micro systems of care. Not this great macro system, and it connects the two. It connects the practitioner who generates the value with the individual to the bigger system rather than the reverse, which is this kind of top down models which which look great on paper, but really see the value from the way forward perspective. It's very much about keeping this far alive and actually working very hard to make sure that as a compassionate community”.
Sustainability is one of the key aspects of this Program. The Brain and Mind Centre hopes that the tool we have developed in collaboration with the community in the Great Southern will help them improve the youth mental health system now and into the future. As Nicole Mencshelyi, of WACHS, says: “For me, it's about breaking down those silos that we've seen across mental health, in particular across all public health sectors. We've always worked very, you know, very siloed approach. And we understand that, you know, there are moving parts within the system, but we've never really had an opportunity to see how those parts can interact and how. Playing nicely in the sandpit together can, can really benefit everybody. And have some nuts and bolts things to influence policy, to be able to influence economics. I think the sustainability piece is really around the continuity of getting these people in a room, and having us all contribute with an equal voice. So it doesn't matter whether you've got lived expertise, whether you've got a doctorate, whether you know, you've come from an economic background, everybody's voice is equally important.”
You can learn more about the Program by watching the video: https://youtu.be/6RgcI8AuGMg #systemsthinking #systemsmodelling #youthmentalhealth #youthmentalhealthsystem #mentalhealth #australianmentalhealthsystem #australianmentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness