Northern Metro Region

Austin CAMHS

General Information

The Northern Region Mental Health Promotion Program covers the North-Eastern metropolitan area including local government areas of Whittlesea, Darebin, Nillumbik, Banyule, Yarra and Boroondara. This is the catchment area for the Austin Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (Austin CAMHS).

The populations within this catchment vary enormously from inner urban to urban rural fringe. The socio-economic status and opportunity varies across municipalities as does the degree of ethnic diversity. Whittlesea has been identified as an area of high growth and Yarra and Darebin have been identified through the Burden of Disease as demonstrating relatively high incidence and burden of mental illness in comparison to other municipalities across Victoria. In fact the Austin CAMHS catchment does not match with the usual regional boundaries, since Boroondara is part of the Eastern Metropolitan Region and the program does not cover the municipalities of Hume and Moreland which are included within the Northern Metropolitan Region for most service systems. The Northern Schools Health Promotion Network does include Hume and Moreland and is co-resourced by the MHPO for the Western Metropolitan Region, since Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services to those municipalities are provided by Orygen and the Royal Chidren's Hospital Mental Health Service. (Refer Western Metropolitan Region for further information.

Mental Health Promotion in the North East

The focus of the Austin CAMHS Mental Health Promotion Program is on liaison and collaboration with the education sector and services working with marginalised young people with a view to:

• Identification of training needs and delivery of training.
• Consultation about mental health issues.
• Collaborative program development.
• Providing feedback to the CAMHS to promote flexible and accessible service delivery to young people and their families.

Austin CAMHS Framework for Mental Health Promotion

Mental health promotion for children, adolescents and their families is a central function of Austin CAMHS.

Mental health promotion for children, adolescents and their families is a central function of Austin CAMHS. Austin CAMHS Mental Health Promotion (MHP) operates on a population mental health promotion model through a three-tier strategy (following the model of Mrazek and Haggerty, 1994, as adapted in the National Action Plan for Promotion, Prevention and Early Intervention for Mental Health 2000):

1. 1. Universal strategies of community liaison, education and collaboration promote mental health in children and adolescents in the Austin CAMHS catchment area, and at statewide and national levels.
2. 2. Selective strategies ensure particular groups of children and adolescents vulnerable to mental health problems, or less able to secure mental health support, receive assistance through community consultation, liaison and collaboration.
3. 3. Indicated strategies are designed to provide targeted assistance to children and adolescents who are identified as having mental health problems, and who have special needs for community based specialist support.

Feedback from the community informs clinical practice and professional development to promote the delivery of an accessible and culturally competent service.

CConsultation and liaison with the general community, and with service partners, guides the development of collaborative programs and activities to integrate the work of the CAMHS with mental health services and mental health promotion across the continuum of care.

This program is developed and coordinated by the Mental Health Promotion Team in collaboration with the Mental Health Promotion Committee representing the clinical outpatient teams and other relevant internal committees.

All CAMHS staff participate in the work of mental health promotion, through their involvement in consultation and liaison, education and training, intersectoral collaboration and / or involvement in networks or committees.

Refer below for a summary of Austin CAMHS Mental Health Promotion Activities during 2006 - 7.

Festival for Healthy Living

The Festival for Healthy Living aims to promote mental health and emotional well - being. It provides opportunities for students to explore these issues using the performing arts and the visual arts. The FHL is an initiative of the Royal Children’s Hospital Mental Health Service, and has been run successfully at over 80 Victorian schools over the last nine years.

The program aims to build the capacity of schools and their communities to improve students’ mental health outcomes, through the delivery of arts projects in schools. It involves students developing solution - based performance pieces, art work and written work facilitated by teachers with assistance from the professional performing artists who work in the schools over the duration of the project as artists in residence. Opportunities develop for schools to enhance their whole- school wellbeing programs by linking learning areas and by being involved in reflective ongoing professional development.

The Festival for Healthy Living in West Heidelberg is now into the second year of the Switching On project. Funded by VicHealth, School Focused Youth Service and the City of Banyule, the project is a collaboration between Austin CAMHS, Royal Children’s Hospital Mental Health Service, local community agencies and four schools in West Heidelberg - Latrobe Secondary, Olympic Village Primary, Haig Street Primary and Bellfield Primary Schools. Building on the successful school-based performing arts program in 2006, the second year of the project is focussing on continued partnerships with agencies, schools and artists and is developing out of school hours community-based options for students and parents.

The East Reservoir Neighbourhood Renewal Program and The Festival for Healthy Living are working with three schools in East Reservoir - Reservoir East and St. Stephen’s Primary Schools and Reservoir District Secondary College. A steering committee comprising representatives from education, health, local government and the arts has been formed, and planning has commenced for delivery of the project in 2008 and 2009.

Responding to High Risk Project

The High Risk Youth pilot project was initially developed in 2005 in response to feedback to the Austin Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) from consumers and agencies in its catchment. Schools indicated a need for better processes and policies regarding referrals of students identified by the referrer as high risk. Using a standard risk assessment definition and framework, the response provided was a secondary consultation in the first instance, with potential for a conjoint primary consultation when appropriate. This 2005 project piloted an outreach secondary consultation model in response to referrals to Austin CAMHS from three Department of Education (DoE) Schools in the Whittlesea Network: Mill Park Secondary, Epping Secondary and Peter Lalor Secondary Colleges.

The evaluation overall indicated that the pilot project achieved its objectives of building a stronger partnership with schools in order to provide a more rapid and coordinated response to young people at high risk. Compared to the prior time period, more high-risk young people were engaged in appropriate services for their difficulties.

The 2006/7 phase of the project (the ‘Responding to High Risk’ initiative), implemented in a different area of the CAMHS catchment, further consolidated and refined the referral protocols and school-based case management models in the participating schools: Melbourne Girls College, Thornbury High School and Northcote High School.

Northern Schools Health Promotion Network

The Northern Schools Health Promotion Network (NSHPN) is a network of educators and health and community workers who have an interest in education, health and welfare. This network covers the DoE Northern Metropolitan region and includes the local government areas (LGA) of Hume and Moreland in the Royal Children’s Hospital Mental Health Service catchment, and the LGAs of Yarra, Darebin, Boroondara, Banyule, Nillumbik and Whittlesea in the Austin Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service catchment.

The Network supports and draws on the Health Promoting Schools (HPS) Framework and the Department of Education (DoE) Framework for Student Support Services for activities undertaken by its members.

The Network is currently involved in the dissemination of information for the Festival for Healthy Living and MindMatters. The Network facilitates a professional development calendar for teachers, student support services and health and community workers on topics relevant to student wellbeing and health promotion in schools. Information about professional development seminars and other news is circulated regularly to members of our electronic mailing list. To subscribe please email Barbara.Collard@austin.org.au

Professional development forums in 2006 included:

• Children of parents with a mental illness: How can schools support them?
  Presented by Angela Obradovic, Chief Social Worker and Family Work Development Co-ordinator and Sabin Fernbacher, Women’s Mental Health Consultant and Service Development Co-ordinator at the Northern Area Mental Health Service.
• School’s In for Refugees: strategies and resources to support young people from refugee backgrounds in school settings. Presented by Sharrin Murphy, School Support Project Worker, Victorian Foundation for the Survivors of Torture.
• Working with Children & Adolescents affected by Family Violence. Presented by Pamela Smith, Northern family & Domestic Violence Outreach Service.



The 2007 Professional development calendar has included:




March

• staff Matters: Ideas for Staff Health & Wellbeing
  Presented by Vivianne Archdall & Joy Freier, MindMatters Victorian State Project Officers.



June

• Health Mind, Health Body
  Presented by Kirsty Greenwood & Helen Franks, Eating Disorders Foundation of Victoria, and Suzi Woolcock, Go For Your Life.



The August presentation will be

• Teaching Students with Serious Behaviour Problems
  To be presented by Genevieve Berenyi, Principal of the Austin Hospital School, with a teacher from the Statewide Child Inpatient Unit, based at the Austin Hospital School.

In October the network will be supporting the ‘MINDing NEMO: the Sequel’ Statewide Conference.

Building on the highly successful ‘MINDing NEMO’ (New Education and Mental health Opportunities) conference, School Focused Youth Service and MPHOs are planning a further conference for 2007 (Oct 17th) to highlight projects have been developed through SFYS and MHPO partnerships since the inaugural conference in 2004. The conference aims to:

• Showcase innovative early intervention and prevention projects/programs that demonstrate collaborative and effective partnerships between MHPOs, schools, SFYS and agencies that relate to health and well being.
• Develop a shared understanding and raise the importance of SFYS/MHPO initiatives in schools
• Improve the interface between mental health services/SFYS and schools.
• Explore the challenge of transferring information and practice between and across regions.

Secondary Consultation

Within Austin CAMHS, mental health promotion takes a coordinating and policy development role for secondary consultations across the service catchment. A particular strategy for secondary consultation is to provide access for schools to regular ongoing secondary consultations with mental health clinicians from the Austin CAMHS outpatient teams or the Adolescent Intensive Management team.

Within the Austin service catchment, this offered through provision of secondary consultation to groups of schools and participation in several ‘Agencies and Schools Together’ consultations. These consultations bring together a range of health and education professionals to support one another in a cross-sectoral approach to finding solutions to the wellbeing and learning needs of children and young people in our schools (primary and secondary schools)

This process leads to the development of new ideas, strategies, collaborative practices and referrals to effectively respond to student wellbeing issues such as social/emotional disturbance, poor social and relational skills, bullying/violence, disengagement, disruptive behaviour, substance use, depression and mental health concerns, and parenting and family support issues.

CAMHS & Schools Early Action (CASEA) program

The Mental Health Promotion team is actively supporting the development of the CASEA project, one of five similar projects across Victoria. CASEA is an evidence-based program treating children with emerging disruptive behaviour disorders in the early primary school years (prep – 3). It takes a multi-faceted approach that utilises:

• Child focused interventions with a group-based approach
• Parenting interventions
• School-based interventions with a focus on professional development for staff
• Development of referral pathways/protocols for individual interventions