In October, the VTMH team came together with Education Changemakers for a team culture retreat day.
The team, with no knowledge of what the day would hold in store, met at Free to Feed in North Fitzroy. What transpired was a day of story-sharing, cooking, and connection to each other and the values and pillars which guide our work.
The VTMH team were honoured to connect with the values, mission, chefs and stories within the Free to Feed team and enjoyed preparing and sharing lunch together.
We thank Free to Feed for hosting us and the team at Education Changemakers for facilitating a wonderful retreat day.
To date, the Mental Health and Cultural Diversity Community of Practice (MHCD CoP), convened by VTMH, has supported a diverse cohort of practitioners across a range of settings, including those beyond the mental health sector, to come together to exchange ideas, thoughts and experiences regarding a broad range of issues relating to cultural diversity and mental health.
VTMH chose this model to offer the workforce a space to have conversations about cultural diversity and mental health, to share the successes and challenges they face when putting their learning and knowledge into practice, and to support clinicians to navigate complexities in their work. We believe this model is helping to build bridges and connections amongst members, find common ground, and encourage robust conversations about cultural diversity and mental health that may not usually be explored.
After having facilitated the MHCD CoP for almost three years, conveners Shehani De Silva and Kimberley Wriedt had the opportunity to share their learnings at the Mental Health Services Conference (TheMHS) in Sydney in October this year.
Their presentation, entitled “Learning together: How has a transcultural mental health service approached a community of practice model”, explored the evolution of the CoP program at VTMH, and how we believe the CoP model is a supportive approach for building a critically reflective workforce, which is vital for a culturally safe and responsive mental health system.
Radhika and Nivanka from VTMH recorded a session for the MHPN Book Club podcast in September, 2022.
In this episode of Book Club, they explored Judith Herman’s ‘Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror’ (1992). Radhika and Nivanka reflected on the book’s powerful themes of witnessing and remembering trauma; how it has inspired a ‘new way of seeing and knowing’ in their practice; and why the ideas presented are more relevant than ever for Australian society and mental health practice.
VTMH’s Education and Service Development Consultant Abie Jazi and Lived Experience Consultant Naomi Chapman have facilitated three further meetings of VTMH’s Lived Experience Community of Practice (VTMH’s LE CoP) since our last newsletter in July of this year.
The objectives of the group are to explore and expand understandings of:
1. How lived experience practitioners with diverse voices influence practice within their organisations and the mental health sector.
2. Systemic barriers and enablers that face lived experience practitioners from diverse backgrounds when trying to contribute or generate change. This will also become a relevant source of knowledge for the Department of Health (DoH).
The LE CoP membership benefits from a diversity of voices within the mental health system with representation from culturally and linguistically diverse and migrant communities, young people and LGBTIQA+ communities.
The group met in August, October and December online. The sessions have included a presentation by Naomi Chapman entitled “Challenging stigma of mental illness”; a presentation by Maria Dimopoulos on her recovery journey and the impact this has had on her employability; and facilitated discussion by Naomi on the topic “Persistent Negative Voices – from surviving to thriving.”
VTMH are excited to continue offering this valuable learning space in 2023 and hope to see continued growth in its membership.
This year VTMH has worked alongside Headspace Dandenong/Hastings sites to pilot a brief and contained service development engagement to support their developing workforce in relation to culturally responsive practice.
The complexities of current funding arrangements and capacity consideration from both organisations rendered a whole of organisational partnership (VTMH’s Partners in Diversity Program) not possible this year. However, collaboration in a short-term local level project specifically focused on localised needs at the Dandenong/Hastings sites was possible with reference to:
Establishing foundational knowledge and practice in cultural responsiveness
Establishing policies and procedures at a local level to ensure policies support practice
Support to establish a reflective practice culture
Implement activities /actions to sustain this culturally responsive lens into the culture of these identified sites. ie. staff orientation models
In close collaboration with the Dandenong/Hastings leadership team, VTMH provided a series of face to face and online workshops, provided guidance to a newly established Policy and Procedure taskforce and co-facilitated a number of reflective practice sessions with Headspace staff.
The project concludes with a brief evaluation to be completed by the end of 2022.
Star Health have been engaged with VTMH as part of our Partners in Diversity Program since 2020.
Recently Star Health, Central Bayside Community Health Services and Connect Health & Community amalgamated under the banner of Better Health Network (BHN).
The BHN network have enthusiastically extended support to continue the VTMH – Star Health partnership to progress the strategies Star Health have employed to embed cultural responsiveness practices in their organisation and work.
For this final year of the partnership, VTMH is supporting BHN by delivering a ‘Train the Trainer’ (TtT) program as one mechanism to extend and embed cultural responsiveness practice within the broader BHN network.
The TtT program was launched in September 2022 with an orientation session. This has been followed by the first two workshops. Further workshops and reflective sessions, to support the trainers as they begin to facilitate the training, will take place in 2023.
It is anticipated that the future BHN trainers in Cultural Responsiveness will be ready to begin supporting the broader BHN staff base to develop knowledge and skills in cultural responsiveness in the second half of 2023.
Over the past 12 months, VTMH has been concentrating on strengthening our relationship with the rural and regional mental health sector through our VTMH Rural and Regional Approach Implementation Project.
The main aim of this project is to ensure that VTMH’s programs and services take into account the unique needs of the rural and regional mental health and wellbeing sector and that their perspectives are included and considered across all of VTMH’s programs and services.
Recently, we facilitated two Consultation Sessions with the VTMH Rural and Regional Liaison Group who represent each of the eight mental health and wellbeing services across rural and regional Victoria. The first session was well attended with representation from each of the rural and regional mental health and wellbeing services. The session generated enthusiastic discussion around commitment to engagement between VTMH and the rural and regional mental health and wellbeing sector. This included conversation around the benefits and the opportunities of this work, which will form part of the Terms of Reference for this group.
The second Consultation Session was held in late November and the aim of this session was to scope the current needs of the rural and regional mental health and wellbeing services in terms of capacity building and cultural responsiveness in the current context (reform, Covid, etc.); and identify barriers and enablers of the rural and regional services accessing VTMH programs and services.
VTMH will use the information gathered to make a set of organisational recommendations to embed into all of our programs and services. This will lead us into the next phase of this work which will be guided by the reflections shared during these sessions.
VTMH looks forward to continuing this valuable work with the rural and regional mental health and wellbeing services.
We currently have a vacancy available for a part time Education & Service Development Consultant (30.4 hours per week).
The successful candidate will be responsible for providing education and service development support to mental health services in Victoria’s public health system in order to improve quality of service delivery to people from diverse backgrounds.
Please visit the St Vincent’s Hospital careers page here to find out more about these exciting new roles.
Dialogue between National and state-wide entities enables relevant alliances and ensures alignment between frameworks. In the context of cultural responsiveness, this dialogue allows possibilities for messages to be amplified, as an example, Embrace Australia and Victorian Transcultural Mental Health (VTMH) inform each other and consult with each other about cultural responsiveness strategies in the national and state-wide context.
Support in the Victorian context
VTMH supports public mental health service providers to go through a reform of their own organisation. In the context of the ‘VTMH Partners in Diversity Program’, the Partnership Framework was designed to facilitate discussions between VTMH and services, to document the services perception of their strength and gaps, to develop organisational goals and to identify how VTMH can assist the organisation to meet their goals.
The VTMH partnership planning framework is relational and aims at enabling educating processes, thinking spaces, broad perspectives, negotiations and co-construction of goals through guided conversations. It is a fluid, dynamic and changing relationship that evolves between VTMH and the partner service supported by the ongoing use of the partnership planning framework.
The VTMH Cultural Responsiveness Partnership Planning Framework was originally adapted from and informed by the domains, standards and measures outlined in the Victorian Government DoH (2009) Cultural Responsiveness Framework: Guidelines for Victorian Health Services.
The VTMH Cultural Responsiveness Partnership Planning Framework is in alignment with the Victorian Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Capability Framework (2021) and Victoria’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Strategy 2021- 2024.
VTMH is here to support public mental health organisations to identify strengths and gaps in cultural responsiveness and put together a plan to sustain positive change.
Support in the National context
The Embrace Multicultural Mental Health Project offers a nationally available online resource which allows mental health organisations and individual practitioners to evaluate and enhance their cultural responsiveness. It is mapped against national standards to help organisations meet their existing requirements, and provides free access to a wide range of support and resources. Public mental health services and practitioners in Victoria can undertake this online assessment (evaluation), and develop an action plan to support organisational improvement in cultural capacity.
If after going through the Embrace Framework, public mental health services in Victoria would like to continue expanding their knowledge, practice, and reflections on cultural responsiveness, they are welcome to contact VTMH which is the Victorian State-wide Transcultural Mental Health Service who supports the Victorian mental health sector to build their capacity on cultural responsiveness.
Early in 2022, the VTMH team welcomed three new team members.
Nivanka De Silva is our new Psychiatry Registrar for 2022 to 2023. Nivanka has a Doctor of Medicine from the University of New South Wales and is in the process of completing a Master of Psychiatry through the University of Melbourne.
Nivanka is excited to be working with VTMH and looks forward to supporting VTMH to increase its contribution to the sector on institutional racism and structural barriers in mental health.
In her own time, she enjoys indulging her love for poetry and visual arts.
Stephanie Shavin (who goes by Steph), joined us as an Education & Service Development Consultant at the beginning of this year. Before joining VTMH, Steph worked as a Counsellor Advocate and Senior Practitioner with Foundation House alongside adults, children and families of refugee background and those seeking asylum who have survived experiences of torture and trauma.
At home Steph is kept busy with her 2 young children; Esther and Hugo.
Abie Jazi also joined us as an Education & Service Development Consultant at the beginning of this year. Abie is a psychiatric nurse, social worker and midwife with qualifications across mental health nursing, social work, and education. One of his primary interests is building clinician skills to address cultural and complex needs at the point of admission or during initial assessment in mental health settings.