Mental Health Act Review

VMIAC is taking part in a review of the Mental Health Act

The VMIAC has been asked to put forward a submission for changes to the current Mental Health Act. There will also be community consultations to invite community members to put forward any recommendations There will be further updates as the process unfolds.

V-group

The VMIAC young consumer group

C&C Project

Consumer & Carer Experiences of Care Survey Project

A flagship project for Victoria: Consumer and carer-led evaluation of Mental Health Services for service quality improvement:

The state-wide survey of consumer and carer experience of public mental health services gives consumers and carers the chance to provide feedback to help improve the quality of services in Victoria. The Review of the 2003-04 Victorian Survey made recommendations for new ways to improve the way information is collected, how it is used by services, and how to facilitate involvement of consumers and carers in quality improvement. This project draws on those recommendations and breaks new ground in the level of consumer and carer participation and partnerships with services:

• A collaboration between the Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council, the Network for Carers of People with a Mental Illness, Mental Health Services and the Department of Human Services
• A 12-month pilot project involving 4 clinical and 4 PDRSS sites across metro and rural Victoria
• Independent carer and consumer bodies responsible for the organisation of the survey, carers and consumers involved in the research design and survey construction, trained consumers and carers carry out the survey
• Services work together with consumer and carer project officers to generate locally relevant questions, to recruit respondents and to make the best use of survey results

Four Phases

1. Wide consultations with consumers, carers and service providers about what a survey of experiences should be about and how it is best delivered
2. Developing and refining survey instruments and processes
3. Promoting the survey, recruiting and carrying out the survey
4. Evaluation of results and survey processes and recommendations for service quality improvement

The pilot will make recommendations for a state-wide roll-out of the survey in future years.

Updates

Communication

In addition to planning for the discussion groups, we are also developing some marketing materials to help recruit consumers and carers to the discussion groups. We will be sending flyers and other advertising materials to your area shortly.

• Febuary Update
• March Update
• June Update
• November Update

For further information, please contact the project manager:

Mr Lei Ning at
projectmanager@vmiac.com.au
Ph: 9387 8317
C&C Project Consumer and carer experiences of care Survey Department of Human Services