Podcasts about National Mental Health Commission

This episode focuses on the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, exploring the inquiry's process, key challenges and the recommendations aimed at addressing the systemic issues contributing to veteran suicides. Dr Andrew Khoo and Dr Jon Lane interview Dr Peggy Brown AO, one of the Commissioners, who shares insights into the inquiry process, including the challenges of political navigation, the importance of meaningful stakeholder engagement and the complexities of veteran health. The discussion also examines the issues uncovered by the Commission, the significance of the interim report and the challenges in data collection. It also highlights the need for a robust veteran services commission to ensure ongoing advocacy and support for those who have served. Dr Andrew Khoo is the Director of Medical Services at Toowong Private Hospital and is the Deputy Chair of the College's Military, Veterans' and Emergency Services Personnel Mental Health Network. He is also the Chair of the Open Arms National Advisory Committee and a member of the DVA Mental Health Expert Advisory Group. A/Prof Jon Lane, FRANZCP, MBBS (Hons), PhD, has been in the Army since 1989 and is also an Afghanistan veteran. He is a clinician in private practice, as well as holding several different roles. These include being the inaugural Chief Psychiatrist for the DVA; the Psychiatry Lead for the University of Tasmania School of Medicine; and has adjunct appointments and research projects with the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research and Gallipoli Medical Research Foundation. He is also the current Chair of the College's Military, Veterans' and Emergency Services Personnel Mental Health Network. Dr Peggy Brown AO is currently the Chief Medical Officer at Medilinks and holds several other key leadership positions. These include Chair of Mental Health Australia, Board Director at Wellways Australia, Chair of the RANZCP Community Collaboration Committee, Member of the Clinical Governance Advisory Committee for the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, and Patron of the BPD Foundation. She has also served as a Commissioner for the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, Senior Clinical Advisor at the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, and Chief Executive Officer of the National Mental Health Commission. She has also held the positions of Director-General of ACT Health and Chief Psychiatrist/Director of Mental Health in Queensland, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. She is also an NHS International Fellow in the United Kingdom. Topic suggestion:If you have a topic suggestion or would like to participate in a future episode of Psych Matters, we'd love to hear from you.Please contact us by email at: psychmatters.feedback@ranzcp.orgDisclaimer:This podcast is provided to you for information purposes only and to provide a broad public understanding of various mental health topics. The podcast may represent the views of the author and not necessarily the views of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists ('RANZCP'). The podcast is not to be relied upon as medical advice, or as a substitute for medical advice, does not establish a doctor-patient relationship and should not be a substitute for individual clinical judgement. By accessing The RANZCP's podcasts you also agree to the full terms and conditions of the RANZCP's Website. Expert mental health information and finding a psychiatrist in Australia or New Zealand is available on the RANZCP's Your Health In Mind Website.

This episode of Psych Matters recorded at the 2023 RANZCP Congress in Perth is about remote supervision for psychiatry trainees. Inequitable access to psychiatric care has been highlighted as a significant shortcoming for both the Australian and New Zealand mental health care system for some time. The college developed a rural psychiatry roadmap 2021 to 2031, a pathway to equitable and sustainable rural mental health services, and has made a number of proposals for change, emphasizing how building the rural psychiatry workforce will require the development of dedicated rural psychiatry training pathways to fellowship.The roadmap focuses on expanding opportunities for aspiring psychiatrists to live, train and practice rurally, as well as optimising the support available for those who take up these opportunities. One of the key priority areas for the roadmap has been to develop the remote supervision regulations which have been endorsed by the board and will be implemented over the coming years. Remote supervision is for newly created and established training posts that have not previously been provided by existing resident psychiatry supervision. The principal supervisor does not reside in the location and is primarily off site. Remote supervision is not designed to replace existing supervision arrangements but rather extend the training opportunities into locations which may have been unable to offer a training post due to meeting requirements of the current supervision policies.This conversation is with Associate Professor Jill Benson and Associate Professor Mat Coleman, who were involved with an expert advisory group in the development of the remote supervision guidelines and new regulations.Associate Professor Jill Benson AM is an Adelaide-based GP who has mostly worked with refugees, Aboriginal people and doctors. She is also an academic and medical educator and has written the Remote Supervision Guidelines for the RACGP as well as RANZCP. Associate Professor Mathew Coleman is a consultant psychiatrist with the WA Country Health Service, Clinical Director for the Great Southern and Midwest Mental Health Service and Clinical Academic with the Rural Clinical School of WA. He is a qualified child and adolescent, and addiction psychiatrist and has experience and qualifications in health service management. He was also the former Commissioner with the National Mental Health Commission.Feedback:If you have a topic suggestion or would like to participate in a future episode of Psych Matters, we'd love to hear from you.Please contact us by email at: psychmatters.feedback@ranzcp.orgDisclaimer:This podcast is provided to you for information purposes only and to provide a broad public understanding of various mental health topics.  The podcast may represent the views of the author and not necessarily the views of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists ('RANZCP'). The podcast is not to be relied upon as medical advice, or as a substitute for medical advice, does not establish a doctor-patient relationship and should not be a substitute for individual clinical judgement.  By accessing The RANZCP's podcasts you also agree to the full terms and conditions of the RANZCP's Website. Expert mental health information and finding a psychiatrist in Australia or New Zealand is available on the RANZCP's Your Health In Mind Website.

This is a 2 part episode of podcasts  with leading Australian and New Zealand psychiatrists developed by the RANZCP Section of Leadership and Management. The following discussions hosted by Associate Professor Robert Parker (Chair of SLAM)  aims to encourage and inform Early Career and other psychiatrists in pursuit of a career in Leadership and Management.  Dr. Peggy Brown AO is currently one of three Commissioners appointed to the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. She formerly held roles including Senior Clinical Advisor at the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care; Chief Executive Officer of the National Mental Health Commission; Director-General, ACT Health; Chief Psychiatrist/Director of Mental Health in Queensland, the Australian Capital Territory, and the Northern Territory; and an NHS International Fellow in the United Kingdom. She has also served on several Boards (including the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), Health Workforce Australia, the National eHealth Transition Authority, Healthscope (Advisory Board). In January 2018, she was admitted as an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to medical administration in the area of mental health through leadership roles at the state and national level, to the discipline of psychiatry, to education and to health care standards. Prof Brett Emerson AM is a psychiatrist and currently a medical member of the Qld Mental Health Review Tribunal, Chair, Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (Queensland Branch) and a Member of the Qld Mental Health Commission Council. He is a Board Director and medical assessor of the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards (ACHS). He is the former Executive Director of Metro North Mental Health, covering the mental health services at RBWH,TPCH, Caboolture and Redcliffe Hospital catchments in North Brisbane. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2017 for significant service to psychiatry and medical administration.Professor Brett Emmerson - UQ Researchers Feedback:If you have a topic suggestion or would like to participate in a future episode of Psych Matters, we'd love to hear from you.Please contact us by email at: psychmatters.feedback@ranzcp.orgDisclaimer:This podcast is provided to you for information purposes only and to provide a broad public understanding of various mental health topics.  The podcast may represent the views of the author and not necessarily the views of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists ('RANZCP'). The podcast is not to be relied upon as medical advice, or as a substitute for medical advice, does not establish a doctor-patient relationship and should not be a substitute for individual clinical judgement.  By accessing The RANZCP's podcasts you also agree to the full terms and conditions of the RANZCP's Website. Expert mental health information and finding a psychiatrist in Australia or New Zealand is available on the RANZCP's Your Health In Mind Website.

Today I discuss the future of healthcare with someone who is very well positioned to discuss this. In addition to a long career as an award-winning medical TV journalist for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sophie Scott is a professional speaker and educator with expertise in mental health. She has been an invited speaker at the World Congress on Positive Psychology, written two books (Live a Longer Life and RoadTesting Happiness, and has won major awards for her journalism and medical reporting. She is an Advisory Board Member of the Australian National Mental Health Prize and sits on the advisory board on stigma at Australia's National Mental Health Commission and the University of Melbourne's Contemplative Studies Centre. She is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Notre Dame University Medical School lecturing in science communication. Sophie's mission is to help people help themselves, using evidence-based science and her own personal journey. She is an ambassador for Bowel Cancer Australia, Pain Australia and is a patient reviewer for the British Medical Journal. Sophie is a highly sought after MC and speaker on topics such as preventing burnout, managing your mental wellbeing during times of change, the science of high-performance habits and how to use neuroscience to stick to new habits and overcome unwanted ones. Her talks and workshops help people take better care of their mental health through science-backed techniques so they can build emotional resilience, maximise their potential and thrive at work and at home.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It is well known that rural/regional Australians face greater health and mental health burdens at the same time as lower levels of service access. Dispersed populations and lower levels of research infrastructure are barriers to rural/regionally based academic psychiatrists. Nevertheless, opportunities exist for those willing to follow the dictum "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." Dr Andrew Amos, leads a discussion of the realized and potential opportunities for successful  research in rural/regional Australia, with a focus on building rural/regional research capacity. A/Prof Mathew Coleman is a consultant psychiatrist with the WA Country Health Service, Clinical Director for the Great Southern and Midwest Mental Health Service and Clinical Academic with the Rural Clinical School of WA. He is a qualified child and adolescent, and addiction psychiatrist and has experience and qualifications in health service management. He was also the former Commissioner with the National Mental Health Commission. A/Prof Ajay Verma Macharouthu; MBBS, MD (Psych), MRCPsych, FRANZCP; currently works as a Staff Specialist in Consultation Liaison Psychiatry for Older Persons, ECT Director & Rural Director of Training for Psychiatry  in Cairns & Hinterland Hospital & Health Services. He is an adjunct Associate Professor at James Cook University, Cairns. He is the recipient of the RANZCP award for the faculty of POA prize for best mental health service improvement 2022. He was the Chair of the Scottish Delirium Association and Co-chaired the SIGN (Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network) 157 Delirium Guideline. He was a research lead and Principal Investigator for several dementia drug trials. Dr. Ernest Hunter is a retired child and adult psychiatrist and public health physician who worked for over three decades in remote Indigenous northern Australia. Ernest integrated research and his clinical practice with a particular focus on population level impacts and interventions, through which the importance of understanding the historical and social contexts that inform patterns of mental distress and disorder in those populations became clear. He is the author of two recent books - Vicarious Dreaming (2019) and Reef Madness (2022) which teeter on the edge of psychiatry.Dr Andrew Amos, a Townsville-based psychiatrist, is Chair of the Queensland Section of Rural Psychiatry and Deputy Editor of Australasian Psychiatry. He is currently completing a Ph.D using Machine Learning to map the psychiatric knowledge contained within the Medline database. Feedback:If you have a topic suggestion or would like to participate in a future episode of Psych Matters, we'd love to hear from you.Please contact us by email at: psychmatters.feedback@ranzcp.orgDisclaimer:This podcast is provided to you for information purposes only and to provide a broad public understanding of various mental health topics.  The podcast may represent the views of the author and not necessarily the views of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists ('RANZCP'). The podcast is not to be relied upon as medical advice, or as a substitute for medical advice, does not establish a doctor-patient relationship and should not be a substitute for individual clinical judgement.  By accessing The RANZCP's podcasts you also agree to the full terms and conditions of the RANZCP's Website. Expert mental health information and finding a psychiatrist in Australia or New Zealand is available on the RANZCP's Your Health In Mind Website. 

Australia has a body that's supposed to look after all of our mental health, and make recommendations to the government on how to make the situation better. It's called the National Mental Health Commission. But inside the commission, some of the staff that are supposed to be coming up with solutions have faced layoffs, stress, anxiety, and worse. So, how did a commission set up with the best intentions turn into such a struggle for staff? Today, senior reporter with The Saturday Paper Rick Morton on how the commission spent its money on a lavish tour around Australia and the ongoing mental toll for its workers. Socials: Stay in touch with us on Twitter and Instagram Guest: Senior reporter for The Saturday Paper, Rick Morton.

This episode of Psych Matters includes 4 child psychiatrists who have or are currently working in regional, rural or remote locations across Australia. Child and adolescent psychiatry is an important subspecialty within psychiatry and the distribution of child psychiatrists in Australia and New Zealand is disproportionately within metropolitan settings. Working in rural and remote settings brings with it unique challenges, beyond just the tyranny of distance. We here from our 4 experts as to the varied opportunities, practice and challenges they have experienced in their careers, including the benefits of considering child and adolescent training in these settings. Associate Professor Mathew Coleman is a consultant psychiatrist with the WA Country Health Service, Clinical Director for the Great Southern and Midwest Mental Health Service and Clinical Academic with the Rural Clinical School of WA. He is a qualified child and adolescent, and addiction psychiatrist and has experience and qualifications in health service management. He was also the former Commissioner with the National Mental Health Commission.Dr Michael Bowden is a Senior Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist with over 30 years' experience working in various settings in mental health. He is Senior Clinical Advisor for Child and Youth Mental Health at the NSW Health Mental Health Branch. Dr Steven Blefari is rural child and adolescent psychiatrist. Trained in the Hunter New England region with focus on rural psychiatry, he moved to Southwest WA 5 years ago and now has the role of Director of Clinical Services for Mental Health and very excited to be the inaugural Rural Director of Training for the brand new Rural WA training zone. Dr Ria Leonard is a Perinatal psychiatrist in the Hunter New England local health district and also provides disability psychiatry input to Western, Far West and Murrumbidgee LHDs of NSW. Following undergraduate medical studies in Sydney and post-graduate studies in Melbourne, Ria Leonard has returned to the rural town she grew up in.Feedback:If you have a topic suggestion or would like to participate in a future episode of Psych Matters, we'd love to hear from you.Please contact us by email at: psychmatters.feedback@ranzcp.orgDisclaimer:This podcast is provided to you for information purposes only and to provide a broad public understanding of various mental health topics.  The podcast may represent the views of the author and not necessarily the views of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists ('RANZCP'). The podcast is not to be relied upon as medical advice, or as a substitute for medical advice, does not establish a doctor-patient relationship and should not be a substitute for individual clinical judgement.  By accessing The RANZCP's podcasts you also agree to the full terms and conditions of the RANZCP's Website. Expert mental health information and finding a psychiatrist in Australia or New Zealand is available on the RANZCP's Your Health In Mind Website. 

Considering a career as a Private rural psychiatrist but not sure about the pathway? A/Prof. Mathew Coleman explores the practicalities with Fellows working in rural private practice, to answer many common queries.The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists has received Australian Government funding under the Specialist Training Program to deliver this activity. Associate Professor Mathew Coleman is a consultant psychiatrist with the WA Country Health Service, Clinical Director for the Great Southern and Midwest Mental Health Service and Clinical Academic with the Rural Clinical School of WA. He is a qualified child and adolescent, and addiction psychiatrist and has experience and qualifications in health service management. He just recently completed two terms as a Commissioner with the National Mental Health Commission.Dr Tristram Duncan graduated with his medical degree from the University of Newcastle. He has over sixteen years of experience in the psychiatry field. Dr Duncan uses a variety of approaches to medication, neurostimulation, and psychotherapy management of psychiatric disorders. He practices at Dudley Private Hospital, which is located in the heart of Orange in regional NSW. Dr Tristram Duncan also participates in outreach clinics through the MSOAP program to various rural and remote locations.Dr Rodney BlanchBSc (Hons), PhD (Chemistry), MBBS, FRANZCP, Cert Adult PsychClinical Director Murrumbateman Specialist CenterGrowing up in a Central Queensland mining town and having been a Chemistry academic with UNSW@ADFA he developed a passion for both rural and military mental health. Dr. Blanch  continues to be active in his engagement with the college as the Rural Representative for the ACT Branch.Dr Therese Mary Grotowski is a psychiatrist who completed her training in rural NSW 24 years ago.  She has worked in private practice in Ballina since then, as well as a variety of roles within the local area health service including acute inpatient and community mental health covering Lismore, Ballina, and Nimbin for 20 years, and more recently with the Disaster Recovery Team.  She has also worked with the local Aboriginal Health Service for several years.  Her interests are in working with people living with psychotic conditions, and intellectual disability and mental illness.  She has been Site Co-ordinator of Training for more than 10 years and has enjoyed mentoring registrars continuously during that time.  She has a keen interest in rural psychiatry and has participated in a number of projects and committees at the state and national level aimed at advocating for service development and improved access for people living with mental illness in rural areas.Feedback:If you have a topic suggestion or would like to participate in a future episode of Psych Matters, we'd love to hear from you.Please contact us by email at: psychmatters.feedback@ranzcp.orgDisclaimer:This podcast is provided to you for information purposes only and to provide a broad public understanding of various mental health topics.  The podcast may represent the views of the author and not necessarily the views of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists ('RANZCP'). The podcast is not to be relied upon as medical advice, or as a substitute for medical advice, does not establish a doctor-patient relationship and should not be a substitute for individual clinical judgement.  By accessing The RANZCP's podcasts you also agree to the full terms and conditions of the RANZCP's Website. Expert mental health information and finding a psychiatrist in Australia or New Zealand is available on the RANZCP's Your Health In Mind Website. 

In this episode of Psych Matters we hear about the ongoing journey of Australia's first Indigenous doctor, Professor Helen Milroy, including the central importance of cultural competence for understanding and engaging with patients of all backgrounds. Professor Milroy is a descendant of the Palyku people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia, Professor of Psychiatry and Chair in Child Mental Health at The University of Western Australia Medical School, and a Commissioner with the National Mental Health Commission; as well as an author of a series of children's books, among many other intellectual and artistic pursuits.Dr Helen Milroy is a descendant of the Palyku people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia, but was born and educated in Perth. Australia's first Indigenous doctor, Helen studied medicine at the University of Western Australia and is currently Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at UWA, Honorary Research Fellow at Telethon Kids Institute and a Commissioner with the National Mental Health Commission. Helen was recently appointed as the AFL's first indigenous commissioner. Wombat, Mudlark and Other Stories is her first book for children.Dr Andrew Amos is an adult psychiatrist in Townsville, currently working on a PhD constructing a map of all the peer review psychiatric research published since the early 20th Century.Feedback:If you have a topic suggestion or would like to participate in a future episode of Psych Matters, we'd love to hear from you.Please contact us by email at: psychmatters.feedback@ranzcp.orgDisclaimer:This podcast is provided to you for information purposes only and to provide a broad public understanding of various mental health topics.  The podcast may represent the views of the author and not necessarily the views of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists ('RANZCP'). The podcast is not to be relied upon as medical advice, or as a substitute for medical advice, does not establish a doctor-patient relationship and should not be a substitute for individual clinical judgement.  By accessing The RANZCP's podcasts you also agree to the full terms and conditions of the RANZCP's Website. Expert mental health information and finding a psychiatrist in Australian or New Zealand is available on the RANZCP's Your Health In Mind Website. 

Welcome to Episode 48 - Burnout, Work and Family with Sophie Scott The literature around burnout tends to focus on burnout being a workplace issue. But as we know in life, what happens at work can impact us outside of work too. This week I'm joined by Sophie Scott, an award winning journalist and broadcaster as the national medical reporter with the ABC. Sophie is also an author, an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame's Medical School, an ambassador for Bowel Cancer Australia, Pain Australia and sits on advisory committees at the National Mental Health Commission and the University of Melbourne's Contemplative Studies Centre. Sophie shares her burnout story, and how having open dialogue around mental health within the family home helped her along her recovery journey. Sophie also shares some great tips to improve our mental health as we work through conditions like burnout or stress more generally. If you're keen to check out the links mentioned in this episode, here they are: Website: www.sophiescott.com.au Instagram: www.Instagram.com/sophiescott2 Insight Timer: https://insig.ht/mbK9GWFbxpb (burnout recovery course) Insight Timer: https://insig.ht/ilgmhenukub (sleep meditation) Insight Timer: https://insig.ht/irzbwp17Lpb (self-healing for anxiety) Insight Timer: https://insig.ht/X7oC1dfIjnb (nervous system meditation) For more from Mindful Men, check out the website at www.mindful-men.com.au ***If anything triggers you from today's episode, please reach out to your support networks or seek professional help*** Cheers, Simon --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mindfulmen/message

On this episode of GET TO KNOW YOU, we discuss  another thought-provoking topic; ‘How do you calm the nervous when being confronted? '. This week, I'll be sitting down with Sophie Scott , you can follow her IG here and www.sophiescott.com.au. She is an award-winning journalist, author and adjunct Associate professor. teaches people around the world how to prevent burnout, manage your mindset and reduce stress. In addition to her work as a multi award-winning medical TV journalist for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, she is a professional speaker and educator with expertise in mental health. She has an extensive presence on social media, has been an invited speaker at the World Congress on Positive Psychology, authored two books (Live a Longer Life (ABC Books) and Road Testing Happiness (Harper Collins), and has won major awards for her journalism and medical reporting. She is an Advisory Board Member of the Australian National Mental Health Prize and sits on the advisory board on stigma at Australia's National Mental Health Commission and the University of Melbourne's Contemplative Studies Centre. She is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Notre Dame University Medical School lecturing in science communication and is an ambassador for Bowel Cancer Australia, Pain Australia and is a patient reviewer for the British Medical Journal. She is a highly sought after MC and speaker on topics such as preventing burnout, managing your mental wellbeing during times of change, the science of high-performance habits and how to use neuroscience to stick to new habits and overcome unwanted ones. Her talks and workshops help people take better care of their mental health through science-backed techniques so they can build emotional resilience, maximise their potential and thrive at work and at home. Tune in as we discuss; mental health, the nervous system, ways to calm the nervous when confronted, different methods of communication when confronting someone and being confronted. Stay tuned to the end of the episode to find out how you can join the conversation on the Get To Know You Café. A big announcement- A new course starting NOW called ‘How to Get To Know You'. Learn how to truly get to know someone and deepen your relationships. We will be giving away the first lesson for free on the website. The link  www.howtogettoknowyou.thinkific.com. https://insig.ht/ilgmhenukub relaxing sleep meditation  https://insig.ht/irzbwp17Lpb self healing for anxiety https://insig.ht/X7oC1dfIjnb nervous system meditation https://insig.ht/mbK9GWFbxpb burnout courseCreditsMusic- Sara Oliveira Support the show

The National Mental Health Commission has embarked on a national journey visiting dozens of communities across each state and territory, consulting and providing support and resources as part of the Making Connections 2022 tour. The commissioner and adviser to the prime minister discuss suicide and mental health issues facing young people and launches new research data.

The National Mental Health Commission assesses that there are increasing challenges affecting young Australians. Indicators of increased psychological stress are: use of mental health services, suicide rates and symptoms of eating disorders. - Nacionalna komisija za mentalno zdravlje procjenjuje da je sve više izazova koji utiču na mlade Australije. Pokazatelji povećanja psihičkog stresa su: korištenje usluga mentalnog zdravlja, stope samoubistava i simptomi poremećaja u ishrani.

The National Mental Health Commission assesses that there are increasing challenges affecting young Australians. Indicators of increased psychological stress are: use of mental health services, suicide rates and symptoms of eating disorders.

It coincides with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices speaking up from the Heal Our Way campaign, and a new initiative in Victoria delivering more than 50 mental health support projects across all state government schools by 2024.

Forty per cent of children and young people surveyed about their mental health say the pandemic has had a negative effect on their wellbeing. The National Mental Health Commission carried out the survey [released on August 24], and in a report recommends more government support for evidence-based mental health programs in schools. - Lumabas sa ginawang pag-aaral ng National Mental Health Commission nitong Agosto, 40 porsyento ng mga bata at kabataang tinanong ang nagsabing may masamang epektado ang pandemya sa kanilang buong katauhan. Kaya inirekomenda ng tanggapan na dapat dagdagan pa ang mga programa ng gobyerno sa paaralan na susuporta sa mental health ang mga bata.

For mental health to progress, we must continually strive for greater visibility, and have all voices heard, recognised, and encompassed within practice. This week's guest Emily Unity is a mental health professional, software developer, and multidisciplinary creative. They are also a queer, culturally diverse, and neurodiverse young person. With a diverse portfolio in the mental health and human rights sector, focusing on marginalised and minority communities, Emily has worked across the sector including with organisations including headspace, Orygen, Beyond Blue, the Royal Children's Hospital, and the National Mental Health Commission. Emily has lived experience of mental health challenges, homelessness, suicide, and self-harm, being a young carer, neurodiversity, LGBTIQA+, having a disability, and being from a refugee and migrant background. They were recently inducted into the Victorian Multicultural Honor Roll, a finalist in the Disability Leadership Awards, and appointed the Mental Health Advocate of the Year. Emily endeavours to use both their professional and lived experience to help advocate for a world for all people, regardless of background, identity, or neurodiversity. They join me today to explore elements of personal experience, self-identity, and their work highlighting the lived and living experiences of multicultural people with Multicultural Minds.

Cuộc khảo sát về sức khỏe tâm thần do Ủy ban Sức khỏe Tâm thần Quốc gia (National Mental Health Commission) thực hiện cho biết có đến 40% trẻ em và vị thành niên đã bị ảnh hưởng tiêu cực đến sức khỏe tâm thần từ sau đại dịch. Từ các bằng chứng thu được, cuộc khảo sát đã đưa ra các lời khuyên cho phụ huynh và các khuyến nghị tới chính phủ cần có thêm những hỗ trợ cho các chương trình sức khỏe tâm thần trong trường học.

國家精神衛生委員會（National Mental Health Commission）審查新冠大流行對兒童心理健康和福祉影響。結果顯示，新冠大流行對兒童及其家人的日常生活，造成前所未有的破壞。

The National Mental Health Commission is visiting the Adelaide Hills today to better understand the challenges our communities face in support for mental health and suicide prevention. Connections2022 will help inform the development of a National Outcomes-Based Framework to  help governments make policy decisions on the country's mental health and suicide prevention systems. Commission CEO Christine Morgan joins Jennie Lenman in this podcast to discuss the tour and what she has learned so far from communities. Those interested in joining in at the community event at Anne Jolly Hall Crafers from 6-7.30pm tonight, Tuesday 2 August, are encouraged to book ahead via this eventbrite link. Those who cannot attend are invited to contibute in writing to the commission. More information, along with the full program can be found here making-connections.com.au  / or call toll free: 1800 220 246  / or email community@making-connections.com.au.

Christine Morgan, the CEO of the National Mental Health Commission and National Suicide Prevention Adviser to the Prime Minister, calls on communities to speak up about challenges related to Mental health. One of the sessions will be held this weekend at Narren Warren, and community members are being asked to attend and speak about challenges and how they can be helped. In an exclusive interview on SBS Dinka Radio, Christine sees Connections2022 as the moment for the agency to hear from the community members.

The National Mental Health Commission is about to embark on a listening tour of cities and towns across Australia to shape future mental health services and resources. Australians with lived experience of mental health are being urged to share their story and provide feedback on the system.

Before she was the CEO of Australia's Mental Health Commission, Christine Morgan served for 10 years as CEO of Butterfly. And to mark Butterfly's 20th anniversary, she sat down with Sam Ikin for an in-depth review of eating disorders in Australia. Their conversation included the state of awareness, research, diagnosis, and treatment options - first looking back to 2002 and then looking forward to 20 years from today.“It was pretty horrific back in 2002," she says. “Thank goodness we've moved on.”Christine was instrumental in getting eating disorders on the government's radar. She commissioned the first economic impact report in 2012 whereby she was able to establish prevalence rates and the effect of eating disorders on the economy. With this as her springboard, she successfully advocated for investment in research, prevention, evidence-based treatments, and psycho-social supports."When you unbundle the economic perspective, you see the impact on somebody's life,” she explains.But the impact report was only one of many contributions Christine has made to people living with eating disorders and those who care about them. Listen to her story and thoughts about the next 20 years for eating disorder prevention and care.If you're keen on reading the Paying the Price report from 2012 you will find on the Butterfly website and if you're really into reports and publications there are plenty on Butterfly's research policy publications page.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Remote psychiatry is one part of the diverse practice of regional, rural, and remote psychiatry that is unique to countries such as Australia and New Zealand.  Remote psychiatry brings a number of unique challenges and benefits for clinicians and is not for the faint hearted. Working in resource poor areas, across large geographical areas means that psychiatrists must be adept in providing the whole range of psychiatric skills and expertise to entire communities, differentiating itself from metropolitan practice most familiar with psychiatrists in Australia and New Zealand. Associate Professor Mat Coleman leads today's discussion from Geraldton in Western Australia, where he calls in from his mobile phone.Joining Mat are Doctors Neil Jeyasingam from Broken Hill, Siva Bala from Cairns and Sela Mulholland from Broome. Mat's mobile phone connection is less than ideal, but stay with us for this very interesting discussion.Associate Professor Mat Coleman is the Clinical Director of the Great Southern Mental Health Service (WA Country Health Service) based out of Albany WA. He is also the inaugural chair of Rural and Remote Mental Health Practice for the Rural Clinical School WA (University of Western Australia) and is a Commissioner with the National Mental Health Commission. Mat is a member of the Faculty of Addiction Psychiatry, and the Child and Adolescent Faculty of the RANZCP and is the current chair of the Section of Rural Psychiatry.Dr Neil Jeyasingam is the Clinical Director of Far West Local Health District Mental Health Drug and Alcohol. A Senior Clinical Lecturer with Sydney University, his personal website is www.profectuspsych.com.au Dr Selamawit Mulholland is a Stage 3 psychiatry registrar with a passion for remote psychiatry. She has lived and worked in regional and rural Victoria, remote Far North Queensland and remote WA. Dr Siva Bala  is the Chair of the RANZCP Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health Committee and currently based in Cairns Queensland. He has a certificate of advanced training in Adult Psychiatry and is a member of the Faculty of Forensic Psychiatry. Siva has been an advisor to State and Federal Governments and mental health commissions in Indigenous mental health policy. Feedback:If you have a topic suggestion or would like to participate in a future episode of Psych Matters, we'd love to hear from you.Please contact us by email at: psychmatters.feedback@ranzcp.orgDisclaimer:This podcast is provided to you for information purposes only and to provide a broad public understanding of various mental health topics.  The podcast may represent the views of the author and not necessarily the views of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists ('RANZCP'). The podcast is not to be relied upon as medical advice, or as a substitute for medical advice, does not establish a doctor-patient relationship and should not be a substitute for individual clinical judgement.  By accessing The RANZCP's podcasts you also agree to the full terms and conditions of the RANZCP's Website. Expert mental health information and finding a psychiatrist in Australian or New Zealand is available on the RANZCP's Your Health In Mind Website.

Georgie is the CEO of Beyond Blue and is known for her decisive and personable leadership style and her track record of delivering complex reforms. She has significant experience in policy development, service delivery and change management across the community, public and private sectors.  Appointed CEO of Beyond Blue in May 2014, Georgie has diversified the organisation's activities and led significant growth in service innovation, suicide prevention and digital offerings in response to community needs.   Previously, she was Deputy CEO of the National Mental Health Commission and for six years prior to that, served as a senior executive at the Commonwealth Department of Health where she had national responsibility for mental health, suicide prevention, substance misuse, cancer and chronic disease. At the same time, she led the strategy and development of legislation to introduce plain packaging of tobacco products in Australia – a world first.  Georgie has also led national reforms to lift Australia's organ and tissue donation rates and worked in the HIV/AIDS sector in Australia and the UK.  Georgie is driven by a determination to do better for people and their families using a community heart and a business head. On today's show, we dived into her journey to becoming the CEO of Beyond Blue and she describes how it is the most purposeful job she has ever had, and still continuing her own growth journey after 8 years in the role. We talked about the challenging work that the team at Beyond Blue faces every day, and how building a culture of trust and clear communication is key to their success. Listen as we discuss:managing oneselfsetting your own personal boundariesthe different types of frameworks organisations can use to manage the well-being of their peopleHow vulnerability can be used as a superpowerand Living as your authentic self is a fundamental pillar in managing your own mental health. Books  mentioned in this episode:Happy Never After by Jill StarkNot Waving, Drowning - Mental illness and vulnerability in Australia: Quarterly Essay 85 By Sarah KrasnosteinWhere to find  Georgie Harman:LinkedInTwitterWebsiteJoin the conversation on Synergy IQ on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram (@synergyiq) and please support other leaders by liking, subscribing and sharing this podcast. Access SynergyIQ Website to get to know more about us. Say hello to our host Daniel Franco on LinkedIn.

A new study has shed much needed light on how men seek help when faced with life challenges. Commissioned by the National Mental Health Commission and undertaken by the men's help group, Men's Table, the ‘From Couch to Community' report surveys men facing life challenges finding that although men see a need for help, they are not sure how to go about seeking help. In-depth interviews showed that there are important subtleties at play on the pathway to help.  David Pointon from The Men's Table joins Jennie Lenman to discuss the findings and encourage listeners to come together to form a new Men's Table chapter.

Today we're bringing you the second episode of a special series with our chief economist Richard Denniss and special guests, based on Richard's new book BIG: The Role of the State in the Modern Economy. Where we talk about the shape of the economy, not just the size of it. In this episode we ask what would Australia look like if we reformed our mental health care system and funded it properly? Our special guest is Professor Ian Hickie, Co-Director of the Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney. Professor Hickie was an inaugural Commissioner on Australia's National Mental Health Commission and is a well-known mental health advocate. He was in conversation with Chief Economist at the Australia Institute, Richard Denniss.Special 20% off discount offer for Follow the Money listeners, get your copy of BIG here and use discount code: AUSINSTITUTE20 at checkout. This episode was recorded on Tuesday 8 March 2022 and things may have changed since recording.australiainstitute.org.au // @theausinstituteHost: Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director at the Australia Institute // @ebony_bennettGuest:Richard Denniss, Chief Economist The Australia Institute // @RDNS_TAIProfessor Ian Hickie, Co-Director of the Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney // @ian_hickieProducer: Jennifer Macey //@jennifermacey with additional editing by Louise OsbourneTheme Music: Pulse and Thrum; additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

About a million Australians are going into this holiday season - which is often defined by feasting - struggling with an eating disorder. Many of those will be hiding in plain sight.They'll be struggling but the people around them won't have any idea because they don't fit the stereotype. They don't look the way people with eating disorders are supposed to look. It's why experts say there are a significant number of people who are not being diagnosed. They may be unsure about what's going on, or they don't feel like they can ask for help because their experience feels so unusual.In this episode, we hear from AJ who developed an eating disorder at the age of 11. Being an indigenous male, he didn't think that he could possibly have an eating disorder. “I had heard of eating disorders,” he tells us. “I thought they only happened to pretty young girls who did ballet.” As a result, he went undiagnosed and untreated for years until a thoughtful teacher intervened.June is in her 70s and has also struggled with stigma. Her ED wasn't diagnosed she was well into her 30s, despite being there since she was 11. “The stereotype that you have to be thin to have an eating disorder is so false,” she says. “People can look very (I hate to use the word) normal, and still have an eating disorder.” She says the stigma she faced as a young woman was awful but things are improving.Social media influencer, Katie, suffered from anorexia when she was a student, but being a person in a larger body, nobody questioned her unhealthy behaviours. “I've talked to people about having an eating disorder and people assume it was binge eating disorder and I'm like ‘no, I was fully starving myself'.” She says she didn't think she had an ED either. “If you wrote down the things I was doing without knowing what I look like, anybody would say that was an eating disorder.Researcher and author of Butterfly's Community Insights Report, Claire Lister, says the data shows people who suffer from eating disorders are just as likely to hold unhelpful beliefs about them. Michelle Blanchard from the National Mental Health Commission says people are beginning to understand the complexity of eating disorders but the myths and stereotypes are still a barrier for many who live with them. The question is how do we help them come out?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Psych Matters, Associate Professor Mat Coleman and his guests discuss Smoking Cessation & E-Cigarettes.Joining in the discussion are Professor Hayden McRobbie and Dr Mark Montebello.Associate Professor Mat Coleman is the Clinical Director of the Great Southern Mental Health Service (WA Country Health Service) based out of Albany WA. He is also the inaugural chair of Rural and Remote Mental Health Practice for the Rural Clinical School WA (University of Western Australia) and is a Commissioner with the National Mental Health Commission. Mat is a member of the Faculty of Addiction Psychiatry, and the Child and Adolescent Faculty of the RANZCP and is the current chair of the Section of Rural Psychiatry. Professor Hayden McRobbie, MB ChB (Otago), PhD (London), FASLMHayden has worked in the field of behavioural medicine for more than 20 years and is a senior clinician with a specialist interest in lifestyle medicine. He holds a medical degree from the University of Otago, a doctorate from the University of London, and is Professor in Public Health Interventions at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW, and a Fellow of the Australasian Society for Lifestyle Medicine. Hayden has played a key role in Tobacco Control in New Zealand, and his current work includes prevention and management of long-term conditions, with a particular focus on improving health outcomes for Māori in New Zealand. Hayden McRobbie has received honoraria for speaking at smoking cessation meetings and attending advisory board meetings that have been organised by Pfizer Dr Mark Montebello is the Clinical Director of the Northern Sydney Local Health District Drug and Alcohol Service. He is a Psychiatrist, an Addiction Medicine Specialist, a Conjoint Senior Lecturer at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, and a Clinical Senior Lecturer, Discipline of Addiction Medicine, Northern Clinical School at the University of Sydney. Dr Montebello's research interests include novel treatments for substance use disorders including nicotine use disorder withdrawal management in drug and alcohol settings. He was the Psychiatry Board Member for the Australian Association of Smoking Cessation Professionals. Mark Montebello has received honoraria for speaking at smoking cessation meetings and attending advisory board meetings that have been organised by Pfizer.Feedback:If you have a topic suggestion or would like to participate in a future episode of Psych Matters, we'd love to hear from you.Please contact us by email at: psychmatters.feedback@ranzcp.orgDisclaimer:This podcast is provided to you for information purposes only and to provide a broad public understanding of various mental health topics.  The podcast may represent the views of the author and not necessarily the views of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists ('RANZCP'). The podcast is not to be relied upon as medical advice, or as a substitute for medical advice, does not establish a doctor-patient relationship and should not be a substitute for individual clinical judgement.  By accessing The RANZCP's podcasts you also agree to the full terms and conditions of the RANZCP's Website. Expert mental health information and finding a psychiatrist in Australian or New Zealand is available on the RANZCP's Your Health In Mind Website.

Young people have been particularly hard hit by COVID restrictions but few children are able to access mental health treatment. The Federal Government is announcing a mental health and well-being strategy aimed kids aged zero to 12 years old, which is being hailed as a world-first.

As we all know, adolescents are highly influenced by their peers - and healthy peer relationships are important predictors of good mental health. However, the importance of peer relationships is not catered for in many mental health programs for young people, instead focusing on clinical intervention or online support materials. This week's guest David Butt has played an integral role in shining a spotlight on youth peer support, helping to bring together the needs of young people, with practical tools for problem solving and positive mental health. David is the National CEO of GROW Australia – an intentional peer to peer support organisation Established in 1957, GROW was founded (and continues to be run) by people with lived experience and delivered by people with lived experience. GROW has drawn on its critically researched program and 60 years of experience to develop the ‘Get Growing Program' for young people at risk of mental ill-health. With vast experience in health care, David's previous roles have included CEO and Commissioner, National Mental Health Commission, Deputy Secretary for the Australian Department of Health, and CEO of Australian General Practice Network, amongst many others. Tune in as David informs us of his experience in mental health, GROW Australia, and their future plans.

Community pharmacies are the most accessible health destination in Australia and therefore are often the first place patients go when they need help to maintain their health, mental health, and wellbeing. The Covid – 19 pandemic has highlighted just how important community pharmacies are in providing care, advice, and health services, however, frontline health provision can bring about heightened levels of pressure for pharmacy staff.   Today, we speak with Christine Morgan, CEO of the National Mental Health Commission and National Suicide Prevention Adviser to Prime Minister Scott Morrison. We discuss why it is vitally important that community pharmacies establish and sustain a mentally healthy workplace and ways in which pharmacists can manage their own mental health and support the mental health and wellbeing of colleagues. There are some great resources available to help you establish and maintain a mentally healthy workplace. The National Mental Health Commission Mentally Healthy Workplace guides have been created by experts to provide practical tips and advice on helping employers and employees look out for the signs that someone may need support, and assist them to find help when they need it. The guides can be found at www.mentalhealthcommission.gov.au  The Pharmacist Support Service (PSS) provides a listening ear over the telephone to pharmacists and pharmacy interns and students. In supporting pharmacists, PSS aims to benefit the public by ensuring that pharmacists maintain their health and well-being and so are able to provide an appropriate level of service to the Australian community. You can visit their website at www.supportforpharmacists.org.au See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

https://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov.au/Mental-health-Reform/National-Workplace-Initiativehttps://www.comcare.gov.au/collaborativepartnershiphttps://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov.au/mental-health-reform/national-workplace-initiative/mentally-healthy-workplaces-during-covid-19https://superfriend.com.au/resources/itw/

Lucy is the Chair of the National Mental Health Commission. Lucy talks about how a family crisis led her to pursue a purpose to improve Australia's mental health. She strives for a life of service and purpose, and reveals two people who were largely influential in that quest. Lucy also shares what she considers to be the building blocks of a caring culture. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2020 will be forever remembered as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic. But in Australia, the ferocious bushfires of 2019 that burned well into the new year will never be forgotten. The strain of such significant events was recognised early and the National Bushfire Recovery Agency and the Mental Health Commission worked quickly to deliver necessary support. But more was to come as the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was realised. In this episode of Work with Purpose, we are joined by Andrew Colvin, the national coordinator of the National Bushfire Recovery Agency, and Christine Morgan, the chief executive officer of the National Mental Health Commission and the National Suicide Prevention Adviser to the Prime Minister.Morgan explains how the stigma around mental health has changed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. How do people view mental health now compared to 2019? What can we do to further improve the stigma around mental health?Colvin discusses mental health in relation to the 2019, 2020 Australian summer bushfires. How do we overcome trauma, grief and tragedy? How should the APS make themselves available to Australians in times of need? Together Morgan and Colvin discuss these questions as well as explain how the National Bushfire Recovery Agency and the Mental Health Commission work together when it comes to bushfire relief. Discussed in this episode:· What COVID-19 taught us about mental heath.· How the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the National Bushfire Recovery Agency.· Advice on what you can do to improve the stigma around mental health.· The work the National Bushfire Recovery Agency has done since the 2019/ 2020 summer bushfires. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Doctor Caroline Alcorso is currently directing the Natural Disaster Mental Health and Wellbeing Framework for the National Mental Health Commission.She has an extensive background in social policy, programs and research in both community sector organisations and government. Along with her substantial academic background, Caroline is a leader and innovator in a range of social policy areas, including health, gender equity, workforce development, workplace relations and multicultural affairs.The Natural Disaster Mental Health and Wellbeing Framework is funded by the Australian Government in a bid to address the increasingly complex mental health needs of individuals and communities affected by natural disasters.The Framework, which will be released in June 2021, aims to improve cross-government responses to mental health threats before, during and after natural disasters.In this episode, Scotia and Caroline discuss:How the Natural Disaster Mental Health and Wellbeing Framework came about and what the approach has been so far for engaging individuals and organisations in the research processThe importance of supporting continuity in community recovery efforts in order to develop skills, personnel and ongoing knowledge-building at a local level to better respond to natural disasters over timeChallenges identified around the help-seeking process and the importance of addressing the mental health impacts of the aftermath of disasterHow the response to our new reality of cascading impacts is being approached at a national level and how it incorporates the presence of non-traditional modes of responseThe importance of co-collaboration and how local funding programs are being successfully utilised to build community capital to help communities rebuildReferences and further reading:National Disaster Mental Health and Wellbeing Framework Factsheet‘Brain research shows the arts promote mental health’, The ConversationNational Arts and Health FrameworkRed Cross Australia, Looking After Yourself and Your Family After a DisasterPhoenix Australia, Disaster Mental Health Hub

In this episode, Prof. Ian Hickie focuses on connection and its impact on our mental health. He talks in detail about what we can learn from indigenous cultures, balancing collective and personal well-being and the significant role of technology in the future of mental health services. Professor Ian Hickie is Co-Director, Health and Policy at The University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Centre. He is an NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow (2013-2017 and 2018-22), having previously been one of the inaugural NHMRC Australian Fellows (2008-12). He was an inaugural Commissioner on Australia's National Mental Health Commission (2012-18) overseeing enhanced accountability for mental health reform and suicide prevention. He is an internationally renowned researcher in clinical psychiatry, with particular reference to medical aspects of common mood disorders, depression and bipolar disorder in young people, early intervention, use of new and emerging technologies and suicide prevention.

Employing people with lived experience in peer worker roles to support others offer a range of benefits. They know what it is like to experience mental ill health, and can share experiences of personal recovery. This week's podcast guest Fay Jackson is the General Manager of Inclusion at Flourish Australia, a large specialist care management organisation supporting people with mental health issues. She was the Inaugural Deputy Commissioner with the NSW Mental Health Commission and founder of independent consultancy and training body, Vision In Mind. Fay is a leader in the Lived Experience and Peer Workforces in Australia. She sits on a multitude of national committees and collaborative working groups including the National Mental Health Commission, Vision 2030, Working Group and subcommittees. She is a member of the National Consumer and Carer Register. She was a member of the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation and Clinical Excellence Commission Council. Tune in this week to find out more about Fay's background with mental ill-health, and gain insight into the peer workforce, including roles, changes, challenges, and future developments. Fay also delves into the importance of culture in supporting lived experience, as well as what Flourish Australia is currently working on, and planning for the future.

Who feels positive about their finances right now? A global pandemic hasn’t done us any favours. Financial stress is on the rise across Australia and is a key concern for the National Mental Health Commission. Mindfulness can help you develop a better relationship with money, and be less afraid of it. For more on this episode and to join a community of like-minded people online head to @thespace_podcast on Instagram and The Space Podcast on Facebook. Credits Host: Casey Donovan @caseydonovan88 Content: Amy Molloy @amy_molloy Executive Producer: Elise Cooper Editing: Elise Cooper, Hannah Bowman, Shetu BimpongSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The boys are joined in this episode by the CEO of the National Mental Health Commission and Suicide Prevention Advisor to the Australian PrIme Minister Christine Morgan who discusses what the mental health landscape looks like for the next 10 years.

Áine Ní Tighearnaigh speaks with Catriona Bisset, middle-distance runner and Tokyo Olympic 2021 hopeful about the National Mental Health Commission's campaign #GettingThroughThisTogether and her personal experience of recovery from an eating disorder. Catriona is based in Northcote, Victoria and is currently living under Stage 4 restrictions. Catriona has a personal lived experience of anxiety, depression and an eating disorder and has become a Lifeline Community Custodian promoting messages about mental well-being and raising the profile of mental health awareness in the community. Catriona is an Australian middle-distance runner, national record holder in the 800m. As an Olympic hopeful Catriona is currently training for the Tokyo Olympics which has been rescheduled to July 2021. She chats with Áine about how she is maintaining her training regime and motivation during the lock down and provides helpful advice to those in lock down or who are struggling to keep active. #GettingThroughThisTogether is a national conversation to support the mental health and well-being of Australians as the uncertainty around Covid-19 continues.

In this month's episode Louise spoke with the CEO of the National Mental Health Commission and National Suicide Prevention Adviser to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Christine Morgan. Louise and Christine spoke about Australia’s mental health system, the Productivity Commission’s Inquiry into Mental Health, the balance between funding physical and mental health issues plus her practical tips for young people.

CEO of the National Mental Health Commission Christine Morgan talks about #Getting through this together initiative. You'll find further information at www.mentalhealthcommission.gov.au  See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

CEO and commissioner of the National Mental Health Commission, Christine Morgan, explains. This interview also led Ross to set a challenge for himself and Russel! See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

Tom Elliott spoke with Christine Morgan, CEO of the National Mental Health Commission and national suicide prevention adviser to the federal government. See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

As part of his upbringing and childhood looking out for others in the community was always part of Mendel Kastel life. Growing up in Brooklyn Mendel felt that he had a passion for helping others and he used to instinct to help him on his journey. His student exchange took him to Sydney, Australia where he has continued his mission to help others. We chat about his driving passion and continued work in helping whilst fighting for the cause of others. We talk about the alarming suicide rate and the need to help the aborigines(Australia's original people).

In this episode, we give you exclusive access to insights from the recent FSC Mental Health & Life Insurance round table webinar, where industry leaders and community voices shared their thoughts on the unfolding impacts of the coronavirus outbreak on the mental health of Australians. This episode is the second of a three-part series and features a number of leading community voices, including Lucy Brogden, Chair, National Mental Health Commission. For more of this conversation, listen to Parts 1 and 3 of this series over on the FSC’s Life Insurance Facebook page – which can be found by searching @FSCLifeInsurance. And don’t forget to like and follow the page while you’re there. REFERENCES: > Mentally Healthy Workplace Alliance: http://mentallyhealthyworkplacealliance.org.au/ > SuperFriend: https://www.superfriend.com.au/ > EveryMind: https://everymind.org.au/programs/mental-health-and-small-business

We try to be someone, we try to do great things, we strive, we battle, we win and lose. But often we forget why. Why do we do what we do? What is at the core of everything we live for? Nicole Gibson, through her enthusiasm, her faith and her determination, reminds us that Love is the source of Life, the healer, and the message. Nicole Gibson was the youngest ever Commissioner for the National Mental Health Commission in Australia and has taken on many challenges, notably a national tour involving 1,000 workshops in 300 communities. Her work has earned her The Pride of Australia Inspiration Medal, a finalist nomination for Young Australian of the Year and recognition as one of Australia's Top 100 Most Influential Women. Nicole is a multi-award winning social entrepreneur, however prefers to be seen as a messenger of love. “You don't have to try to be special. Your very existence is a miracle." Nicole Gibson Author, Speaker, Leader of the "Love Out Loud" Movement

This week my guest is the fierce and wonderful president of HAES Australia, Dr Carolynne White! A Facebook post from Headspace in Hervey Bay fired her (and many others) up when it claimed that eating sugary food causes mental health problems! As a mental health expert and anti-diet advocate, Carolynne knows how much this kind of messaging oversimplifies, stigmatises, and downright does damage. The fact that the SUGAR IS EVIL message is being spruiked by one of Australia’s leading adolescent mental health organisations is a worry. Particularly when it’s part of “The Push Up Challenge”, a fund raiser for Headspace which raises awareness about youth suicide by forcing people to do over a hundred push ups a day. Has anyone at Headspace heard of eating disorders? Why is encouraging excessive exercise in teens ok? Do they know how hung up young people are about body image and health? WHAT ON EARTH ARE THEY THINKING!? Join us as we rant about this extremely ill advised campaign. The truth is, mental health and physical health just can’t be separated, and we need to be doing a lot more critical thinking to avoid doing harm! CW: Discussions about suicide, mental illness & eating disorders.     Show Notes     My guest this week is Dr Carolynne White, occupational therapist and health promotion lecturer. Through her professional experience and her PhD research, Carolynne has formed the strong opinion that good mental health is absolutely necessary to support good overall health. Carolynne is also the president of HAES Australia. Carolynne got all fired up about a facebook post from Headspace at Hervey Bay in Queensland, about a ‘push up challenge’ to raise awareness about suicide and to raise money for Headspace. Headspace is a very well funded network of mental health treatment centres for adolescents and young people. Headspace enjoy a lot of government funding here in Australia, and also gather a lot of attention in the media. Their Mission is ‘to provide tailored and holistic mental health support to young people aged 12-25”. They focus on early intervention and prevention of mental illness, as well as focusing on physical health as well. According to the website, the ‘push up challenge’ was started by a ‘bunch of mates’ passionate about the topic. The challenge involves doing 3128 push ups over the month of August - one for each life lost to suicide in 2017. This is a LOT of push ups - over 100 a day. Louise’s first thought - why are headspace supporting an initiative that uses the symptoms of a major mental illness - ie the compulsive exercise aspects of an eating disorder - to raise awareness of mental illness? It just seems very ill advised. Particularly when you consider that eating disorder have the highest mortality rate, particularly from suicide, among young people. The man who started the push up challenge is Nick Hudson, he’s from Perth. He’s a white Aussie bloke in his thirties. Louise found 2 media articles about him which said slightly different things. One said he had heart surgery as a child, and when he got older his fitness declined and he realised he needed more heart surgery. This made him depressed, and one of the ways he came out of the depression was to start this push up challenge. But then another news article which came out about the same time (and was accompanied by a truly awful ‘Fitspo on steroids’ picture) said that his father had suffered from depression for many years but had never told him. When he discovered the depression, he ‘did some research’  on mental health. Then he and his mates, who do push ups as part of their regular fitness regime, decided to turn it into something more. So it’s odd to have 2 such different stories out there in the media, normally people have just one story, but there you go. There is a level of privilege reflected in the message that in order to come out of depression you need to do a few push ups. It’s great that this happened for him, but many people need a lot more help than just exercise to recover from something as complex as depression. Plus, particularly with people that Louise sees in her practice, the LAST thing they need is to focus on counting push ups! The Hervey Bay Headspace post was particularly problematic because he was posting about the evils of sugar as well. He claimed that high intakes of sugar increase the likelihood of developing mental illness, and more severe symptoms of depression. This of course caused a furore ! Having worked in mental health, Carolynne thinks of the impact a message like this would have on an adolescent who might be struggling with their mental health, and how unhelpful it would be. The person who made this claim was a personal trainer, and obviously way outside of their scope of practice or expertise making claims like that. This post did attract a lot of push back from mental health experts. Particularly considering the vulnerability and age of the audience of Headspace! Australian teenagers are really hung up on issues of body image, health, etc, and we are seeing very high rates of eating disorder symptomatology which is being overlooked in this ‘health obsession epidemic’ that we’re all suffering from. The latest Mission Australia Youth Survey (2018) found that 30% of young people reported feeling ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ concerned about their mental health and their body image. These were equal concerns. Younger women reported higher levels of concern than younger men. Gender dynamics play into this. Thinking of a bloke modeling the push up challenge and the impact that might have on a teenage girl…. A paper that has just come in in 2019 looks at the point prevalence of eating disorders in young people in Australia. Data from 5000 Aussie teens aged 11-19 showed that 22.2% met diagnostic criteria for an eating disorder. That’s 1 in 5 kids! 1 in 3 Aussie kids have high levels of concern about their body image and 1 in 5 have diagnosable eating disorders. In girls, the eating disorder rate is 33.3% and in boys it’s 12%. This is a huge concern and we need to centre this in our public health messaging. The push up challenge is an extreme fitness challenge. Looking through the Instagram for the push up challenge, a very narrow range (ie very muscular physiques) are represented. If we couple that with the facebook post which moralises food, it creates an environment which compromises recovery for those suffering with eating disorders. Are the people at Headspace really thinking this through? The Headspace demographic includes very young teenagers who are still very much black and white thinkers. If a 13 year old comes across the Hervey Bay page with its comments on sugar, they don’t have the cognitive capacity to see any nuance or think critically about it. This message is coming from an authority figure and they are highly likely to view it as: do not eat sugar under any circumstances. This is everywhere in Louise’s clinical practice at the moment: young kids developing eating disorders following exposure to well meaning messages about the nutritional value of food. Basically, no-one in high school should watch ‘That Sugar Film’. Adolescence is the THE highest risk time for development of an eating disorder. 14 years old is the average age kids can develop one. This is the exact demographic of Headspace’s audience and for these type of social media messages to be demonising sugar and pushing compulsive exercise, it’s really not on. Headspace have done a great job promoting themselves as a safe place for people with diverse identities to go. They need to incorporate body diversity into their messaging as well, many teens suffering from mental illness will be in larger bodies and need to feel safe and included. All of the eating disorder statistics from the paper on point prevalence we just discussed are higher in kids with higher body weights. People in larger bodies have eating disorders more often than smaller people, but if Headspace is full of gymbunnies doing workouts….hello!? Headspace’s own website discusses eating disorders & their symptoms, with sentences beginning with “Excessive exercise is a symptom of an eating disorder”…  The push up challenge has raised $2.5 million for Headspace, which is phenomenal. It’s a great job - but the methods of fund raising definitely need to be worked on! Headspace do a great job in our community, but they are well funded. There are 107 Headspace centres around the country. They get $95 million a year from the Government, and have just been given another $50 million. And when a psychologist at headspace sees a teenager, they bill Medicare for the appointment. Many of the psychologists are contractors, not employees of Headspace, so they take a % of the Medicare subsidised fee as payment. Headspace do great work, but they are well funded. In comparison we have a desperate shortage of hospital beds for people suffering from severe eating disorders. So many areas of mental health are severely underserviced. It seems that the ‘popular’ ideas get funded. So - if anyone listening wants to raise funds for mental health don’t give it to Headspace, they’re doing alright! This whole push up challenge for Headspace runs on the idea that exercise is always good for mental health. And there’s a real push in mental health to include ‘lifestyle’, or physical health. Carolynne started her career as an Occupational Therapist in a maximum security hospital - as did Louise! When Carolynne started, a report came out of Western Australia which found a huge disparity between physical health of people with mental illness and those without, and the gap in life expectancy. Working in a prison hospital, you see people from all walks of life. People who have experienced extreme poverty, severe trauma, and mental illness, and all of that mixed up together has a huge impact on their physical health. In the past few years there has been increased attention to the physical health status of people with mental illness. The National Mental Health Commission drafted up a consensus statement, and the stats are just astounding. In Australia, 1 in 5 people have a mental illness, and 16% of Australians live with both a physical health condition and a mental illness. If you have both, your life expectancy is reduced by 15.9 years for men and 12 years for women. This is conservative: around the world, the gap can be as much as 20 years. It’s staggering - much more than cigarette smoking. A few years ago Carolynne took part in Partners in Recovery, an initiative for people living with mental illness. During this period, 3 of the people involved died. Carolynne initially thought it might have been suicide. On of them had taken their own life, but one had a heart attack and the other died in their sleep of ‘natural causes’. This is the general case: People with a mental illness who die early, usually die from physical causes other than suicide. The main causes are cardiometabolic: heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. All of the issues often attributed to higher weight. In the search to improve health and mortality outcomes, the focus has unfortunately of course landed on people’s weight. Because this is just what people with mental health issues need - a good push up! People with mental illness are more likely than the general population to have a BMI over 35. And that’s not to do with not eating the ‘right’ food or not getting enough exercise! A lot has to do with medication related weight gain. People taking medication to take care of their mental health is really positive, and if a side effect of that is weight gain, focusing on that and ‘blaming’ people for poor lifestyle habits is unfair. Antipsychotic medications, bipolar meds, and some antidepressant medications can have weight gain as a side effect. Many people Louise speak with could benefit a lot from medication, but often hesitate because of fear of weight gain. Or, people choosing to go off medication which is benefitting their mental health because of weight gain. This really brings home the reality of weight stigma. The drive for thinness in our culture is valued above everything else. Carolynne had an experience of gaining weight after being put on medication for depression, which she found confronting as she had previously lived in an always thin body. It’s very understandable, but it makes her sad, as in our culture people’s mental health might be compromised because of that societal pressure. Imagine if we lived in a truly weight inclusive society how the experience of mental illness might be very different? There’s already stigma around mental illness. If you’re going to lump weight stigma on top of that it just compounds the disadvantage that people experience. If someone gets well from taking medication, but then comes to live in a larger body, and experiences weight based discrimination, it’s yet another experience of oppression, exclusion, and marginalisation which is extremely weathering to physical and mental health. Many of the organisations that champion physical health don’t think about mental health whatsoever. So they don’t think about the impact of their campaigns on people’s mental health. The idea of perpetuating weight stigma and the health impacts of that (both physical and mental) - it’s just not thought of. Given the numbers of people suffering with mental illness, it is not ok that they are not considered in these campaigns. Particularly when you consider that people with mental illness are more likely to get these conditions, mental health should be people’s first consideration. The fact that they’re not is another example of entrenched stigma. They’re just erased, not visible anywhere. It’s depressing. This concept of the mind and body being separate goes back to the 16th century, with French Philosopher Descartes who championed the separation of the body from the mind. This is known as Dualism. This is where it all started but we need to get out of the 16th century and into the 2000’s! Mind and body are not separate, and physical and mental health are not separate either. It is super dangerous when we do. Carolynne & Louise first met at an Eating Disorders and Obesity Conference in the Goldcoast, where Carolynne got told off for being ‘irresponsible’ for talking about her non-diet community intervention, and Fiona Willer got pointed at and shouted down by Prof John Dixon. At the conference they had a presentation on the “Live Lighter” campaign. They had a speaker from the Cancer Council talking about the campaign, and a speaker from an eating disorders organisation talking about how they could change their messaging to make it more supportive for people with eating disorders. They used a slide with a stick figure with its’ head cut off, and then another with the head back on, to talk about how a combined approach - one that included mind and body - was much better! This is pretty naive when you consider that people with mental illness will get cancer at about the same rate as people in the general population, but are more likely to die earlier of cancer - because they’re not screened early enough, or their surgeries either don’t happen or are delayed. This separation between mind and body has deadly consequences. There is awareness growing that we need to do something to mend this separation. The Equally Well consensus statement is a good example of this. Equally Well is an initiative which started in New Zealand, as a collective effort to get people on board to improve the physical health of people with mental illness. Equally Well is very much led by people with lived experience of mental illness. In Australia, Equally Well launched in 2017, and many organisations have signed up in partnership with them. Earlier this year HAES Australia signed up. In terms of weight-neutral, non-diet content, Equally Well are not there yet, but we need to be in there in order to influence and give input, so that diet culture and weight centrism doesn’t sink its teeth in! The good news is, Equally Well is definitely NOT funded by Novo Nordisk, so there’s no Big Pharma agenda trying to sell weight loss drugs out of this! Caro Swanson is a champion of Equally Well and a person with lived experience of mental illness. Caro did a keynote speech at the first Equally Well Symposium in Melbourne earlier in 2019, alongside Helen Lockett (‘the other lady! - sorry!!). Caro spoke about her experience of having ‘experts’ come in and take away her power. She was worried that Equally Well would be just like other initiatives and leave people with lived experience out. Caro made the excellent point that people with mental illness are already under a lot of scrutiny, and with the introduction of physical health focus ‘now you’re going to scrutinise the rest of our lives too.’ Carolynne gives the example of a man with schizophrenia living in a group home, who was being judged for eating chips and drinking Coke late at night. But this was the only food available for him to eat after a night shift. We must hold back judgements about people’s choices, and make the effort to understand their lives. Eating ‘well’ is actually a privilege, which not all of us have. Lots of people are doing the best they can to just eat regularly, and everyone needs to just back off! It’s really annoying to hear the story of the man with schizophrenia being judged for his food choices (which is really a judgement about his weight). Taking anti psychotic meds means he could eat kale morning, noon and night and still gain weight! It is not a ‘choice’ and the gain is not under his control. He is doing well to take his meds and strive for improved mental health. No-one enjoys hearing voices, it’s terrifying. If taking meds means increased weight, that needs to be ok. Caro made the excellent point “monthly girth measurements don’t do anything for my mental health’. Equally Well is a collective, lived-experience led, aimed at helping people living with mental illness improve their physical health in an equitable way. Caro’s stand against the weight-centric attitudes is awesome. We really need to ensure that things like waist measurements aren’t just blindly given for no reason: people need to give consent, and have the right to say no if focus on their weight is not comfortable for them. It’s great that HAES Australia are part of Equally Well, so we can really fight for a weight-neutral, inclusive approach to improving physical health for people with mental illness. One of the Equally Well statements says: “obesity is a major contributor to a range of common diseases including metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. People living with mental illness should be offered tailored support for weight management programs as part of routine care”. It doesn’t matter how ‘tailored’ the program is, weight ‘management’ does not work! This approach just ‘ticks the box’, but we really need to apply critical thought. Why are we doing this - what’s the efficacy? If it doesn’t work in the general population to lose weight long term, why on earth would they work in those with mental illness who may suffer multiple barriers, be more disadvantaged and live more disruptive lives? In mental health over the past few years there has been increased focus on recovery and hope. Dieting approaches are the opposite of that! They disempower and get people stuck in an endless cycle. There are so many beautiful pathways to improving health that have bugger all to do with weight. Health professionals need a lot more training in mental health, particularly trauma informed mental health care and an understanding of concepts such as social justice and privilege. It is very important that our efforts to help people don’t traumatise them further. We need to really listen to people’s lived experiences, because everyone is unique. We can’t forget how much awful stuff has been done to people in the name of helping their mental health! I think weight management programs are our modern day equivalent of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” style therapy. Naomi Wolf said that dieting is a powerful political sedative. Maybe one day Equally Well can face off against Obesity Australia! Medication research needs to be done to improve the metabolic side effects, the answer is not to just add in another weight loss medication to the mix. Donate to Equally Well - they will definitely not have a push up challenge! Health is so much more than doing a push up. Resources: The Headspace Hervey Bay FB post which stirred controversy (scroll to July 10th) HAES Australia website Dr Carolynne White’s research profile on the Swinburne University page. The Perth article which talked about Nick Hudson and his reasons to do The Push Up Challenge where he talked about his heart operations. The Triple White article which talked about Nick Hudson & his dad’s depression being the inspiration behind the Push Up Challenge (get a load of the extreme Fitspo image they chose to use…) The Push Up Challenge website The Mission Australia Youth Survey 2018 The Headspace website Details on Headspace funding The Lancet paper on the physical health of people with mental illness The eating disorder point prevalence in Australian adolescents paper The Equally Well Consensus statement An awesome interview with Caro Swanson and Helen Lockett. From Equally Well.  

This week my guest is the fierce and wonderful president of HAES Australia, Dr Carolynne White! A Facebook post from Headspace in Hervey Bay fired her (and many others) up when it claimed that eating sugary food causes mental health problems! As a mental health expert and anti-diet advocate, Carolynne knows how much this kind of messaging oversimplifies, stigmatises, and downright does damage. The fact that the SUGAR IS EVIL message is being spruiked by one of Australia’s leading adolescent mental health organisations is a worry. Particularly when it’s part of “The Push Up Challenge”, a fund raiser for Headspace which raises awareness about youth suicide by forcing people to do over a hundred push ups a day. Has anyone at Headspace heard of eating disorders? Why is encouraging excessive exercise in teens ok? Do they know how hung up young people are about body image and health? WHAT ON EARTH ARE THEY THINKING!? Join us as we rant about this extremely ill advised campaign. The truth is, mental health and physical health just can’t be separated, and we need to be doing a lot more critical thinking to avoid doing harm! CW: Discussions about suicide, mental illness & eating disorders.     Show Notes     My guest this week is Dr Carolynne White, occupational therapist and health promotion lecturer. Through her professional experience and her PhD research, Carolynne has formed the strong opinion that good mental health is absolutely necessary to support good overall health. Carolynne is also the president of HAES Australia. Carolynne got all fired up about a facebook post from Headspace at Hervey Bay in Queensland, about a ‘push up challenge’ to raise awareness about suicide and to raise money for Headspace. Headspace is a very well funded network of mental health treatment centres for adolescents and young people. Headspace enjoy a lot of government funding here in Australia, and also gather a lot of attention in the media. Their Mission is ‘to provide tailored and holistic mental health support to young people aged 12-25”. They focus on early intervention and prevention of mental illness, as well as focusing on physical health as well. According to the website, the ‘push up challenge’ was started by a ‘bunch of mates’ passionate about the topic. The challenge involves doing 3128 push ups over the month of August - one for each life lost to suicide in 2017. This is a LOT of push ups - over 100 a day. Louise’s first thought - why are headspace supporting an initiative that uses the symptoms of a major mental illness - ie the compulsive exercise aspects of an eating disorder - to raise awareness of mental illness? It just seems very ill advised. Particularly when you consider that eating disorder have the highest mortality rate, particularly from suicide, among young people. The man who started the push up challenge is Nick Hudson, he’s from Perth. He’s a white Aussie bloke in his thirties. Louise found 2 media articles about him which said slightly different things. One said he had heart surgery as a child, and when he got older his fitness declined and he realised he needed more heart surgery. This made him depressed, and one of the ways he came out of the depression was to start this push up challenge. But then another news article which came out about the same time (and was accompanied by a truly awful ‘Fitspo on steroids’ picture) said that his father had suffered from depression for many years but had never told him. When he discovered the depression, he ‘did some research’  on mental health. Then he and his mates, who do push ups as part of their regular fitness regime, decided to turn it into something more. So it’s odd to have 2 such different stories out there in the media, normally people have just one story, but there you go. There is a level of privilege reflected in the message that in order to come out of depression you need to do a few push ups. It’s great that this happened for him, but many people need a lot more help than just exercise to recover from something as complex as depression. Plus, particularly with people that Louise sees in her practice, the LAST thing they need is to focus on counting push ups! The Hervey Bay Headspace post was particularly problematic because he was posting about the evils of sugar as well. He claimed that high intakes of sugar increase the likelihood of developing mental illness, and more severe symptoms of depression. This of course caused a furore ! Having worked in mental health, Carolynne thinks of the impact a message like this would have on an adolescent who might be struggling with their mental health, and how unhelpful it would be. The person who made this claim was a personal trainer, and obviously way outside of their scope of practice or expertise making claims like that. This post did attract a lot of push back from mental health experts. Particularly considering the vulnerability and age of the audience of Headspace! Australian teenagers are really hung up on issues of body image, health, etc, and we are seeing very high rates of eating disorder symptomatology which is being overlooked in this ‘health obsession epidemic’ that we’re all suffering from. The latest Mission Australia Youth Survey (2018) found that 30% of young people reported feeling ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ concerned about their mental health and their body image. These were equal concerns. Younger women reported higher levels of concern than younger men. Gender dynamics play into this. Thinking of a bloke modeling the push up challenge and the impact that might have on a teenage girl…. A paper that has just come in in 2019 looks at the point prevalence of eating disorders in young people in Australia. Data from 5000 Aussie teens aged 11-19 showed that 22.2% met diagnostic criteria for an eating disorder. That’s 1 in 5 kids! 1 in 3 Aussie kids have high levels of concern about their body image and 1 in 5 have diagnosable eating disorders. In girls, the eating disorder rate is 33.3% and in boys it’s 12%. This is a huge concern and we need to centre this in our public health messaging. The push up challenge is an extreme fitness challenge. Looking through the Instagram for the push up challenge, a very narrow range (ie very muscular physiques) are represented. If we couple that with the facebook post which moralises food, it creates an environment which compromises recovery for those suffering with eating disorders. Are the people at Headspace really thinking this through? The Headspace demographic includes very young teenagers who are still very much black and white thinkers. If a 13 year old comes across the Hervey Bay page with its comments on sugar, they don’t have the cognitive capacity to see any nuance or think critically about it. This message is coming from an authority figure and they are highly likely to view it as: do not eat sugar under any circumstances. This is everywhere in Louise’s clinical practice at the moment: young kids developing eating disorders following exposure to well meaning messages about the nutritional value of food. Basically, no-one in high school should watch ‘That Sugar Film’. Adolescence is the THE highest risk time for development of an eating disorder. 14 years old is the average age kids can develop one. This is the exact demographic of Headspace’s audience and for these type of social media messages to be demonising sugar and pushing compulsive exercise, it’s really not on. Headspace have done a great job promoting themselves as a safe place for people with diverse identities to go. They need to incorporate body diversity into their messaging as well, many teens suffering from mental illness will be in larger bodies and need to feel safe and included. All of the eating disorder statistics from the paper on point prevalence we just discussed are higher in kids with higher body weights. People in larger bodies have eating disorders more often than smaller people, but if Headspace is full of gymbunnies doing workouts….hello!? Headspace’s own website discusses eating disorders & their symptoms, with sentences beginning with “Excessive exercise is a symptom of an eating disorder”…  The push up challenge has raised $2.5 million for Headspace, which is phenomenal. It’s a great job - but the methods of fund raising definitely need to be worked on! Headspace do a great job in our community, but they are well funded. There are 107 Headspace centres around the country. They get $95 million a year from the Government, and have just been given another $50 million. And when a psychologist at headspace sees a teenager, they bill Medicare for the appointment. Many of the psychologists are contractors, not employees of Headspace, so they take a % of the Medicare subsidised fee as payment. Headspace do great work, but they are well funded. In comparison we have a desperate shortage of hospital beds for people suffering from severe eating disorders. So many areas of mental health are severely underserviced. It seems that the ‘popular’ ideas get funded. So - if anyone listening wants to raise funds for mental health don’t give it to Headspace, they’re doing alright! This whole push up challenge for Headspace runs on the idea that exercise is always good for mental health. And there’s a real push in mental health to include ‘lifestyle’, or physical health. Carolynne started her career as an Occupational Therapist in a maximum security hospital - as did Louise! When Carolynne started, a report came out of Western Australia which found a huge disparity between physical health of people with mental illness and those without, and the gap in life expectancy. Working in a prison hospital, you see people from all walks of life. People who have experienced extreme poverty, severe trauma, and mental illness, and all of that mixed up together has a huge impact on their physical health. In the past few years there has been increased attention to the physical health status of people with mental illness. The National Mental Health Commission drafted up a consensus statement, and the stats are just astounding. In Australia, 1 in 5 people have a mental illness, and 16% of Australians live with both a physical health condition and a mental illness. If you have both, your life expectancy is reduced by 15.9 years for men and 12 years for women. This is conservative: around the world, the gap can be as much as 20 years. It’s staggering - much more than cigarette smoking. A few years ago Carolynne took part in Partners in Recovery, an initiative for people living with mental illness. During this period, 3 of the people involved died. Carolynne initially thought it might have been suicide. On of them had taken their own life, but one had a heart attack and the other died in their sleep of ‘natural causes’. This is the general case: People with a mental illness who die early, usually die from physical causes other than suicide. The main causes are cardiometabolic: heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. All of the issues often attributed to higher weight. In the search to improve health and mortality outcomes, the focus has unfortunately of course landed on people’s weight. Because this is just what people with mental health issues need - a good push up! People with mental illness are more likely than the general population to have a BMI over 35. And that’s not to do with not eating the ‘right’ food or not getting enough exercise! A lot has to do with medication related weight gain. People taking medication to take care of their mental health is really positive, and if a side effect of that is weight gain, focusing on that and ‘blaming’ people for poor lifestyle habits is unfair. Antipsychotic medications, bipolar meds, and some antidepressant medications can have weight gain as a side effect. Many people Louise speak with could benefit a lot from medication, but often hesitate because of fear of weight gain. Or, people choosing to go off medication which is benefitting their mental health because of weight gain. This really brings home the reality of weight stigma. The drive for thinness in our culture is valued above everything else. Carolynne had an experience of gaining weight after being put on medication for depression, which she found confronting as she had previously lived in an always thin body. It’s very understandable, but it makes her sad, as in our culture people’s mental health might be compromised because of that societal pressure. Imagine if we lived in a truly weight inclusive society how the experience of mental illness might be very different? There’s already stigma around mental illness. If you’re going to lump weight stigma on top of that it just compounds the disadvantage that people experience. If someone gets well from taking medication, but then comes to live in a larger body, and experiences weight based discrimination, it’s yet another experience of oppression, exclusion, and marginalisation which is extremely weathering to physical and mental health. Many of the organisations that champion physical health don’t think about mental health whatsoever. So they don’t think about the impact of their campaigns on people’s mental health. The idea of perpetuating weight stigma and the health impacts of that (both physical and mental) - it’s just not thought of. Given the numbers of people suffering with mental illness, it is not ok that they are not considered in these campaigns. Particularly when you consider that people with mental illness are more likely to get these conditions, mental health should be people’s first consideration. The fact that they’re not is another example of entrenched stigma. They’re just erased, not visible anywhere. It’s depressing. This concept of the mind and body being separate goes back to the 16th century, with French Philosopher Descartes who championed the separation of the body from the mind. This is known as Dualism. This is where it all started but we need to get out of the 16th century and into the 2000’s! Mind and body are not separate, and physical and mental health are not separate either. It is super dangerous when we do. Carolynne & Louise first met at an Eating Disorders and Obesity Conference in the Goldcoast, where Carolynne got told off for being ‘irresponsible’ for talking about her non-diet community intervention, and Fiona Willer got pointed at and shouted down by Prof John Dixon. At the conference they had a presentation on the “Live Lighter” campaign. They had a speaker from the Cancer Council talking about the campaign, and a speaker from an eating disorders organisation talking about how they could change their messaging to make it more supportive for people with eating disorders. They used a slide with a stick figure with its’ head cut off, and then another with the head back on, to talk about how a combined approach - one that included mind and body - was much better! This is pretty naive when you consider that people with mental illness will get cancer at about the same rate as people in the general population, but are more likely to die earlier of cancer - because they’re not screened early enough, or their surgeries either don’t happen or are delayed. This separation between mind and body has deadly consequences. There is awareness growing that we need to do something to mend this separation. The Equally Well consensus statement is a good example of this. Equally Well is an initiative which started in New Zealand, as a collective effort to get people on board to improve the physical health of people with mental illness. Equally Well is very much led by people with lived experience of mental illness. In Australia, Equally Well launched in 2017, and many organisations have signed up in partnership with them. Earlier this year HAES Australia signed up. In terms of weight-neutral, non-diet content, Equally Well are not there yet, but we need to be in there in order to influence and give input, so that diet culture and weight centrism doesn’t sink its teeth in! The good news is, Equally Well is definitely NOT funded by Novo Nordisk, so there’s no Big Pharma agenda trying to sell weight loss drugs out of this! Caro Swanson is a champion of Equally Well and a person with lived experience of mental illness. Caro did a keynote speech at the first Equally Well Symposium in Melbourne earlier in 2019, alongside Helen Lockett (‘the other lady! - sorry!!). Caro spoke about her experience of having ‘experts’ come in and take away her power. She was worried that Equally Well would be just like other initiatives and leave people with lived experience out. Caro made the excellent point that people with mental illness are already under a lot of scrutiny, and with the introduction of physical health focus ‘now you’re going to scrutinise the rest of our lives too.’ Carolynne gives the example of a man with schizophrenia living in a group home, who was being judged for eating chips and drinking Coke late at night. But this was the only food available for him to eat after a night shift. We must hold back judgements about people’s choices, and make the effort to understand their lives. Eating ‘well’ is actually a privilege, which not all of us have. Lots of people are doing the best they can to just eat regularly, and everyone needs to just back off! It’s really annoying to hear the story of the man with schizophrenia being judged for his food choices (which is really a judgement about his weight). Taking anti psychotic meds means he could eat kale morning, noon and night and still gain weight! It is not a ‘choice’ and the gain is not under his control. He is doing well to take his meds and strive for improved mental health. No-one enjoys hearing voices, it’s terrifying. If taking meds means increased weight, that needs to be ok. Caro made the excellent point “monthly girth measurements don’t do anything for my mental health’. Equally Well is a collective, lived-experience led, aimed at helping people living with mental illness improve their physical health in an equitable way. Caro’s stand against the weight-centric attitudes is awesome. We really need to ensure that things like waist measurements aren’t just blindly given for no reason: people need to give consent, and have the right to say no if focus on their weight is not comfortable for them. It’s great that HAES Australia are part of Equally Well, so we can really fight for a weight-neutral, inclusive approach to improving physical health for people with mental illness. One of the Equally Well statements says: “obesity is a major contributor to a range of common diseases including metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. People living with mental illness should be offered tailored support for weight management programs as part of routine care”. It doesn’t matter how ‘tailored’ the program is, weight ‘management’ does not work! This approach just ‘ticks the box’, but we really need to apply critical thought. Why are we doing this - what’s the efficacy? If it doesn’t work in the general population to lose weight long term, why on earth would they work in those with mental illness who may suffer multiple barriers, be more disadvantaged and live more disruptive lives? In mental health over the past few years there has been increased focus on recovery and hope. Dieting approaches are the opposite of that! They disempower and get people stuck in an endless cycle. There are so many beautiful pathways to improving health that have bugger all to do with weight. Health professionals need a lot more training in mental health, particularly trauma informed mental health care and an understanding of concepts such as social justice and privilege. It is very important that our efforts to help people don’t traumatise them further. We need to really listen to people’s lived experiences, because everyone is unique. We can’t forget how much awful stuff has been done to people in the name of helping their mental health! I think weight management programs are our modern day equivalent of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” style therapy. Naomi Wolf said that dieting is a powerful political sedative. Maybe one day Equally Well can face off against Obesity Australia! Medication research needs to be done to improve the metabolic side effects, the answer is not to just add in another weight loss medication to the mix. Donate to Equally Well - they will definitely not have a push up challenge! Health is so much more than doing a push up. Resources: The Headspace Hervey Bay FB post which stirred controversy (scroll to July 10th) HAES Australia website Dr Carolynne White’s research profile on the Swinburne University page. The Perth article which talked about Nick Hudson and his reasons to do The Push Up Challenge where he talked about his heart operations. The Triple White article which talked about Nick Hudson & his dad’s depression being the inspiration behind the Push Up Challenge (get a load of the extreme Fitspo image they chose to use…) The Push Up Challenge website The Mission Australia Youth Survey 2018 The Headspace website Details on Headspace funding The Lancet paper on the physical health of people with mental illness The eating disorder point prevalence in Australian adolescents paper The Equally Well Consensus statement An awesome interview with Caro Swanson and Helen Lockett. From Equally Well.  

The number of suicides in Australia has been rising in the last decade, with more than 3,000 Australians taking their life in 2017, according to the latest available ABS figures. Some of the most vulnerable groups include Indigenous Australians, young Australians, unemployed people, and veterans. Scott Morrison has declared this a key priority area for the government. He has appointed Christine Morgan, CEO of the National Mental Health Commission, as the national suicide prevention advisor to the prime minister. On this episode, Christine Morgan speaks with Michelle Grattan about the issue - what we know so far, and what needs more clarity. She stresses the role of communities in tackling the rising rates, and also argues for a more holistic view - beyond narrow mental health problems - of the factors that drive people to contemplate taking their own lives. "Yes, it may be that they’re suffering from a mental health condition. Yes, they may be suffering from a health condition. But they may also be being affected by other things which significantly impact, like what is their housing security?[…]What is their employment situation? what is their financial situation? Have they come from a background of trauma?" Anyone seeking support and information about suicide can contact Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636. Additional audio: A List of Ways to Die, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive. Image: Shutterstock

Have you felt guilty or hesitant to seek psychological counselling? In this episode, Niharika Hiremath, a young psychologist in training, and a commissioner on the board of the National Mental Health Commission, discusses things that hold us back from getting help, stigmas in immigrant communities, and why it's important to rightfully own your mental health needs. We also share our experiences with finding a good fit with a psychologist, and growing up as depressed Indian kids in Australia.

Mental health is a topic that we feel is very important, as does Gotcha4Life founder Gus Worland. We were invited to Triple M in Sydney to have Gus join us for this episode of the KSC Podcast — where we discuss the importance of mental health, how to destigmatise it among men, and what resources there are for those needing help in managing their own mental health.—————Links to mental health resources in Australia:• Crisis Support Lines 24/7:Lifeline – 13 11 14Suicide Call Back Service — 1300 659 467Kids Helpline — 1800 55 1800MensLine Australia — 1300 78 99 78Family Drug Support — 1300 368 186• Gotcha4Life:https://www.gotcha4life.org• Beyond Blue:https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/what-is-mental-health• Mental Health Australia:https://mhaustralia.org• National Mental Health Commission:http://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov.au/get-help.aspx• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare:https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/mental-health-services/mental-health-services-in-australia/report-contents/summary-of-mental-health-services-in-australia• NSW Mental Health Resources:https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/mentalhealth/pages/default.aspx• Contacts for NSW Mental Health Services:https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/mentalhealth/Pages/contact-service.aspx• Australians for Mental Health:http://www.australiansformentalhealth.org.au—————#KSCpodcast #Gotcha4Life #mentalhealthWe're on iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/kingsgrove-sports-centre-podcast/id1437202332?mt=2We're on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/4atk67gAHYdDIyOZDQG9N4?si=kwGMx_YxS9CuneGoUQPlrQOr listen to the podcast at http://kscpodcast.com!Find exceptional cricket bats and more at our website:https://www.kingsgrovesports.com.auBe sure to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to Kingsgrove Sports on YouTube for more product reviews:https://www.youtube.com/KingsgroveSportsCentreAnd follow us!https://www.facebook.com/Kingsgrovesportscentre/https://www.twitter.com/kingsgrovesporthttps://www.instagram.com/kingsgrovesports/

Georgie Harman was appointed as the CEO of Beyond Blue in May 2014 where she has led a significant expansion of effort and results in service innovation, suicide prevention and digital solutions.Previously, she was the Deputy CEO of the National Mental Health Commission, providing independent advice to government on mental health reform.From 2006-2012, Georgie had national responsibility for mental health, suicide prevention, substance misuse, cancer and chronic disease policy and programsas a senior executive at the Commonwealth Department of Health. She led the development of the largest ever mental health Budget package. At the same time, she was responsible for the strategy and development of legislation to introduce plain packaging of tobacco products in Australia – a world first.Georgie has also led national reforms to lift Australia’s organ and tissue donation rates and worked in the HIV/AIDS sector in Australia and the UK.Also joining us on the discussion is Patrice O’Brien General Manager Workplace, Partnerships & Engagement at beyondblue. Patrice drives activities to promote mentally healthy workplaces Australia wide, guides the establishment of strategic partnerships for Beyond Blue and leads Beyond Blue’scommunity engagement activities.This is such an important chat and will not only help you in the workplace but will help you in life situations also. When the statistics are showing that 1 in 5 Australians workers will suffer a mental illness, the conversation in business has got to change to include tabling mental illness as a business as usual discussion. Georgie and Patrice share examples, stories and some really simple strategies that you can run with to ensure you have a mentally fit workplace and taking care of yourself.In this episode we cover:· Georgie’s role as CEO and how she keeps herself grounded in her leadership· Heads Up - the resources available and tips for leaders and small business owners to keep themselves mentally fit· What is a mentally fit workplace· Keys to providing a mentally fit workplace· Tips for how to manage mental health issues when confronted with themThere are incredible resources available for small business specifically on the website – refer to the Heads Up link below.Links:Beyondblue Heads Up

Georgie Harman is currently the CEO of mental health not for profit beyondblue which tackles stigma and discrimination, and provides support and information on anxiety, depression and suicide. She was previously the Deputy CEO of the National Mental Health Commission and has had a long and successful career in the public service, community and the Not-For-Profit sectors. Take a listen to Georgie as she explores what authentic leadership means to her.