Building regional capacity to support mental illness

Building regional capacity to support mental illness

Alaya Partners has been funded by Murray PHN to build community and sector capacity to respond to mental illness effectively. This funding was distributed in response to this regions most recent population health needs analysis. The analysis indicated a need to improve service access and community understanding for clients living with more severe/complex mental illness. As an active provider of education and resources in the Goulburn Valley region, Alaya has responded by developing the following support:

  • Training packages to primary care practitioners. This aims to increase their confidence, skills and knowledge when working with clients with severe/complex mental illness.
  • Update and refine current medical software templates to ensure they support and guide primary care practitioners. This includes information to support clients with co-morbidity and tips to align care plans to recovery oriented principals
  • Implement consistent approaches to client assessment and support in the region. This was done by introducing the Recovery Star model to mental health clinicians working with severe/complex mental illness.
  • Deliver Mental Health First Aid training to support networks (carers, family and friends) of those clients living with mental illness. This aims to better equip them to understand and support their loved ones and/or clients.

Overall, the implementation of more effective support around general practice and primary care practitioners (as service advocates and referrers) has improve the accuracy of mental health pathway access for clients in Goulburn Valley. Working with primary care to improve medical software templates has also improved the comprehensiveness of Mental Health Treatment Plans conducted on behalf of clients.

Image Credit: Duncan Cunningham-Reid via Flickr Creative Commons

Creating Alaya House

Creating Alaya House

In 2019, Alaya Partners and our clinical services partner, APMHA HealthCare, realised our vision to open a “bricks and mortar” mental health service in rural Victoria. People in Shepparton and surround areas can now access high quality mental health services from our beautifully appointed new clinic, Alaya House.

APMHA HealthCare’s established local mental health workforce that provides Murray PHN funded Psychological Therapy Services and Primary Mental Health Clinical Care Coordination (PTS / PMHCCC) are now stationed at Alaya House.

Alaya House’s 25-person capacity training room means Alaya Partners will be able to increase workforce and community training and education in the Murray PHN region. The Group Room (15 person capacity) is now accessible to APMHA HealthCare staff, giving staff the opportunity to provide comprehensive psychosocial education programs. Both areas of these areas are available for hired through Alaya Partners.

The Recovery Hub will provide a physical presence in the region, house our established local mental health workforce and expand our services to include GPs experienced in working with complex clients and NDIS services.

Alaya Partners, as part of a consortium with our clinical services partner, APMHA HealthCare and two pharmacotherapy prescribing GPs are the successful recipients of a 2019 Victorian Regional Readiness Fund grant. This grant will enable our consortium to:

  • Become an accredited NDIS provider
  • Upskill local NDIS providers in working with people with a psychosocial disability
  • Upskill our current workforce
  • Provide opportunity for our partnering GPs to work within NDIS

Alaya Partners will closely monitor and evaluate Alaya House in order to refine a business and service model for future roll-out in other regional areas where APMHA is contracted to provide services. Our consortium’s vision is to:

“Provide holistic, team-based, mental health stepped care for people experiencing mild mental illness through to psychosocial disability”.

This Victorian Government investment will position Alaya House as one stop shop for people with a mental illness or psychosocial disability and increase the region’s capacity to service NDIS plans with high quality mental health services.