Author: vtmh

VTMH Monthly Registrar Group: A Platform for Cultural Responsiveness in Psychiatry

Fostering Cultural Sensitivity in Psychiatric Practice

We are excited to announce the ongoing success of the VTMH Monthly Registrar Group, an initiative dedicated to enhancing cultural responsiveness among psychiatry registrars across Victoria.

This group meets for 1 hour, running from 2:30-3:30pm on the last Wednesday of each month. Each session invites psychiatry registrars to bring forth clinical cases that present cultural components or nuances. These cases form the basis of rich, in-depth discussions aimed at exploring the cultural dynamics that influence mental health care. By examining these real-world scenarios, participants gain valuable insights into the complexities of providing culturally sensitive psychiatric services.

Upcoming Sessions

Our next meeting is scheduled for the end of this month. We invite all psychiatry registrars in Victoria to join us and contribute to this enriching dialogue. Whether you have a case to present or wish to learn from others, your participation is invaluable.

For more information about the group or to express your interest in joining, please contact Dr. Justin Kuay (VTMH Consultant Psychiatrist) justin.kuay@svha.org.au or Dr. Sangita Raj (VTMH Psychiatry Registrar) sangita.raj@svha.org.au.

We look forward to seeing you at our next session!

Rural and Regional Approach Initiative

We are pleased to provide a mid-year update on the Victorian Transcultural Mental Health (VTMH) Rural and Regional Initiative Project. Our efforts have been met with significant success, delivering three highly engaging and impactful Foundations of Culturally Responsive Practice (FOCR) workshops for Goulburn Valley, Bendigo and Ballarat mental health services in May, June and July respectively.

This workshop introduces participants to principles that inform culturally safe practice, while encouraging the exploration of practical skills to enhance diversity and responsive mental health practice. The feedback from participants has been overwhelmingly positive, highlighting the relevance and practicality of the content provided.

Additionally, our project staff presented at two Department of Health (Mental Health Division) led Local Implementation Team (LIT) forums in Warrnambool and Shepparton during May. These forums provided an excellent platform for showcasing VTMH’s work, sharing insights, and networking with other professionals committed to improving mental health services. Our presentations were well-received, sparking meaningful discussions and fostering collaborative relationships that will undoubtedly benefit our ongoing initiatives.

In a further testament to our project’s reach and impact, Barwon Health invited VTMH to present to 54 new mental health clinicians during its orientation day in February. This session was a valuable opportunity to introduce our work, share key resources, and emphasise the importance of culturally responsive mental health care. The engagement and enthusiasm from these new clinicians was encouraging, and we look forward to supporting them as they begin their careers in mental health services.

Thank you to everyone involved for your dedication and hard work in making these achievements possible.

Abie and Ben (VTMH R&R Approach Initiative Team)

Spirituality & Diversity Discussions update and future

2024 has been another remarkable year for the Spirituality and Diversity discussions (S&D discussions) conducted by VTMH in partnership with Spiritual Health Association (SHA).

We have conducted the following, thought-provoking sessions:

13 February 2024 “Is this a spiritual emergence or a mental health crisis?”

12 March 2024 “Medicate or contemplate? The time constraints of the system”

9 April 2024 “Holding tension between different perceptions of reality.“

14 May 2024 “Do my spiritual beliefs matter in providing mental health care?”

11 June 2024 “Moral stress – a part of your working landscape?”

20 August 2024 “‘Psychiatry and God, why are they such strange bedfellows?”

Following these sessions, one participant spoke of the benefit of explicitly enquiring about a consumer’s spirituality (even if not using that word), and the need to be non-judgmental when doing so. Another participant commented that there was no contradiction between doing both medical and spiritual healing if they were both helpful. 

We will shortly advertise more discussions that will occur in the second half of the year. We look forward to seeing you at these sessions!

VTMH & KCV ‘Meet & Greet’ Event

On Tuesday, 3 July 2024, VTMH hosted a ‘Meet & Greet’ event with Kenya Community Victoria (KCV). This was a wonderful opportunity for VTMH staff and KCV organisational leaders, mental health sub-committee members/volunteers and community members to meet and to formalise our relationship through an official signing of the KCV & VTMH Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). 

The event was an inspiring and highly memorable experience for everyone involved. We thank KCV members for their generosity in sharing their stories, experiences and wisdom with us. 

We are very much looking forward to working together over the next 2 years to support KCV to centre and embed mental health and well-being literacy in their organisational structure, leadership, programs and activities. Our work together will focus on 2 main areas: 

  • Capacity building of KCV mental health sub-committee members in their volunteer role;
  • Supporting the engagement of the community.

We look ahead with anticipation to building a strong, successful, and mutually beneficial relationship.

VTMH’s Lived and Living Experience (LLE) CoP – an overview

In December 2021, VTMH held its first Lived Experience Community of Practice. This community of practice supports a diverse cohort of practitioners from a variety of workplace settings to come together and exchange ideas and experiences on a broad range of issues relating to lived experience, cultural diversity, and mental health.

The group is run bi-monthly on Microsoft Teams and aims to:

  • Discuss, develop and promote strategies to amplify the voices of diverse lived and living experience within mental health care workplaces and community-based settings.
  • Discuss and identify enablers and systemic barriers that diverse LLE practitioners face when trying to contribute, generate and sustain change (e.g. enablers such as supportive management and whole-of-organisation approaches to embedding lived and living experience; and barriers such as tokenistic consultation).
  • Learn from diverse LLE practitioners’ stories of challenge and triumph when navigating workplaces and the mental health sector as part of the Royal Commission’s reform.
  • Share knowledge relating to fundamental aspects underpinning LLE work (e.g., self-care, values, co-reflection, using an intersectional lens, practicing cultural responsiveness).

The group is led by VTMH’s Consumer Consultant, Naomi Chapman, and is supported by staff in the unit, including VTMH’s Carer Consultant Olivia Fletcher, and consultants with their own lived experience as consumers, supporters or carers.

Having facilitated the Lived Experience Community of Practice for almost two years, Naomi had the opportunity to share her learnings at The Mental Health Services Conference (TheMHS) in Adelaide last year.

During her presentation, “Dare to Care: Human Rights and Compassion in the Workplace,” Naomi mentioned the development of the community of practice program as an example of a platform where LLE workers reflect on their practice and learn from the intersection between diversity and lived experience. LLE workers are invited to bring their various lenses of their experience to conversations about how mental health, cultural diversity, and lived experience are intertwined in wellbeing challenges, recovery, and ways care services are structured to meet the needs of diverse communities.

The overall goal of this CoP is to support the lived and living experience workforce to influence practice within the sector in ways that diverse lived and living experiences are centred, exploring ways to create a more culturally responsive and inclusive system.

Membership to the CoP is open to individuals working as lived and living experience workers in public mental health and wellbeing services across Victoria. We invite you to read the Terms of Reference before joining the CoP so you can make an informed decision.  We are looking forward to hearing from those who would like to join us. Link to Terms of Reference.

Education and training update

VTMH has been delighted to return to face-to-face workshops this year as part of our state-wide calendar, in addition to continuing to deliver workshops online.

We have enjoyed sharing our face-to-face workshops from a variety of training venues from across Victoria, including Shepparton, Bendigo, Ballarat, Dandenong and Melbourne Inner North and CBD.

The state-wide training program has offered a range of workshops including our Foundations of Culturally Responsive Practice for Mental Health Settings, Approaching Work with Interpreters in Mental Health Settings, Recovery and Diversity – Approaches to Cultural Assessment and Supporting Personal Recovery and our new workshop, Community Engagement with Purpose – Approaches to Consider in Mental Health Settings. We have been thrilled to connect with practitioners from a broad variety of mental health services and roles through these workshops.

VTMH workshops are open to and provided free to staff working in Victoria’s state-funded mental health workforce. This includes public clinical and community mental health services, as well as state-funded mental health programs within community health and social services.

Staff working in a range of roles within this workforce, including but not limited to community rehabilitation and recovery workers, lived experience workers, mental health nursing, social work, occupational therapy, psychiatry, community engagement roles, program leaders/project workers and administration roles, are invited to register.

To stay connected with upcoming dates, please join our mailing list here

To read more about our workshops visit https://vtmh.org.au/education/workshops/

Spotlight on: VTMH Team Member – Justin Kuay

This is a new section to our twice yearly e-newsletter. We realise that while many of you reading this do work with some members of our team, many of you don’t know who we are!

To change this, we have decided to share with you an interview with one of our team members in each of these e-newsletters.

This month, Justin Kuay has kindly agreed to be interviewed.  

Name:  Justin Kuay

Job title: Consultant Psychiatrist

Qualifications: MBBS, FRANZCP, M. Psychiatry, B MedSci, cert. psychotherapy psych. (RANZCP)

Time at VTMH: 12 years

Tell us your work story: I graduated from Melbourne University Medical School in 2004 and since then, have worked at St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, predominantly at VTMH. For the other half of my time, I work in private practice providing general adult psychiatric treatment including psychotherapy. 

I have also worked at the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture (Foundation House) for approximately 7 years before finishing my time there in 2019.

What attracted you to this role at VTMH? I previously worked at VTMH as a registrar before fully qualifying as a consultant psychiatrist and so had a chance to see the valuable work that VTMH does. What I liked about VTMH was the opportunity to promote culturally responsive care both at individual and organisational levels. During this process, VTMH encourages reflective practice both within VTMH as a team as well as facilitating similar spaces for discussion with organizations and individuals. Coming from a background in practicing psychotherapy, I really value and see the effectiveness of this in VTMH’s work.

Proudest achievement/s while working at VTMH: Being involved in the spirituality and diversity discussion project.

What do you hope for and envision for the future of VTMH? I hope that VTMH can continue to help support the implementation of government frameworks and policy in the cultural responsiveness space. I hope that organisations VTMH works with can see the benefit of engaging diverse populations and provide them with culturally responsive care.

What do you enjoy most about your role? Facilitating reflective spaces.

What do you like to do in your free time? Play piano, drums, guitar and reading.

What’s the last book you read? The Edge of Collapse series (a post-apocalyptic thriller) by Kyla Stone

What’s the first concert you ever attended? Dream Theatre in Melbourne.

What’s the next place on your travel bucket list? South Korea

Tell us something we might be surprised to hear about you?  I like 80s-style rock music and metal-style guitar. I also have a deep connection to my Christian faith.

VTMH is expanding!

We currently have a vacancy available for a permanent, part-time (16 hours per week) role as a Communications Consultant with VTMH.

This is a new role within VTMH and the successful candidate will be responsible for leading and executing the development, implementation and assessment of Communication strategies for the Unit.

Please visit the St Vincent’s Hospital careers page here to find out more about this exciting new role.

The link above should take you directly to the advertisement on the St Vincent’s Hospital website. If it does not, you can find the job advertised on Page 2 under St Vincent’s Public Hospital Melbourne Careers.

Reflections following the Referendum

Originally sent as a campaign to our mailing list on 22 November 2023.

VTMH has taken some time following the Voice Referendum to reflect and attempt to find words to express our disappointment regarding this outcome. We deeply acknowledge the courage and generosity of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders and leaders who extended this invitation to the Australian community to walk together in this journey for learning and healing together.

In the weeks since the referendum we have reflected on the impacts that colonisation has had in shaping practices in the mental health sector, including our service, and the continued challenges faced in providing culturally responsive care given the history of these lands.

VTMH deeply admires the strength and resilience of First Nations communities across the country. We commit to rising strong, leaning in, and to finding ways to honour our commitment to learning and healing together.

 We encourage teams and individuals in all sectors to continue joining collective efforts to support a more culturally safe and humanistic system and society.  

 To learn more about what is happening in Victoria towards truth, treaty and voice, we encourage you to visit the links below: 

Home – Yoorrook Justice Commission 

TREATY FOR VICTORIA | First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria (firstpeoplesvic.org) 

Full time, fixed term opportunity

We currently have a vacancy available for a full time fixed term (until 30 June 2024)
Evaluation & Research Assistant.

The successful candidate will:

  • Undertake evaluation studies of specific projects within VTMH
  • Collect and analyse quantitative and qualitative data to draw conclusions about the effectiveness and impact of these projects
  • Provide recommendations for VTMH on the basis of the evaluation findings
  • Develop reports and presentation for each evaluation project

Please visit the St Vincent’s Hospital careers page here to find out more about this exciting new role.