We have undertaken more than 30 projects in the mental health space from small assignments and service level evaluations to reviews of large projects including whole of Government responses to mental health and suicide service demands.
Our expertise is recognised by the National Mental Health Commission (NMHC). We provided advice on the workforce requirements to support the NMHC’s ‘Contributing Life’ service delivery reform vision and service plans for the future. The report was presented to the federal Minister for Health in the National Review of Mental Health Programs and Services.
We also worked with the NSW Mental Health Commission to review and help to revise its strategic equivalent to the NMHC plan. ‘ Living Well’ drives and directs mental health services in Australia’s largest state. The NSW MHC has also commissioned HCA to research an innovative workforce planning approach to the rural mental health workforce.
Service Design
Working with the Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health and The University of Newcastle, we developed service models consistent with National and NSW mental health reform agendas to facilitate collaboration between government and non-government service providers.
We then partnered to work on an exciting mental health innovation project in the Mid North Coast to put those models into practice. We evaluated and documented the benefits of this service redesign. We found that progress had been made to increase collaboration between NGO services, but critically, levels of collaboration between NGOs and government services still needed to significantly improve. A pathway to making reforms work was laid out.
Strategic Planning and Suicide Prevention
Building on our previous work, we developed a Suicide Prevention Strategy for Tasmania. We added value with a layer of innovative thinking that took the Tasmanian Strategy into the forefront of National and International conceptualisation. Our strategy demonstrated a collaborative effort between consultants and a large number of passionate stakeholders.
We used a similar approach for the development of a strategy and web-based suicide prevention resources for DVA targeting veterans and former peacekeepers.
Every project we complete builds on our skills and expertise, informing our future projects and creating benefits for a broad cross-section of our community.