Our Vision
Our vision is to better support people to recover from mental illness by taking a systems approach, encouraging professionals to work together to achieve better mental health outcomes for Australians.
Mounting international evidence supports the following principles which should underpin a continuum of mental health services, whether public, private or non-government (NGO). The needs and rights of consumers must always be central to service delivery and development.
Mental Health Services Should:
- Promote recovery to enable an optimal quality of life and active citizenship.
- Ensure equitable access to a comprehensive range of hospital and community-based high quality, safe and effective specialist and support services when and
- where they are needed and throughout the course of the exacerbations and remissions of illness.
- Provide cost-effective services that deliver the best value in terms of improved health
- Respond to the specific continuing and differing needs of various population groups across their lifespan.
- Recognise the individual’s unique physical, developmental, emotional, social, cultural and spiritual dimensions;
- Offer specialised mental health treatment and support which imposes the least personal restrictions of rights and choices on the individual, balanced with the need for safe and effective treatment;
- Achieve evidence-based outcomes
- Ensure continuing investment in recruitment and the appropriate training of the workforce;
- Improve community understanding and acceptance of mental illness to create social environments that support the individual’s citizenship, civil rights, personal dignity and privacy;
Be Collaborative:
Ensure that specialist mental health services work together with other public, private, government and non-government agencies in a coordinated manner to provide continuity of care and to meet the range of social, psychological and medical needs (including crisis intervention, assessment, acute care, ongoing care and rehabilitation);
Co-ordinate planning and integration of service delivery to ensure sustainable community living for people with mental illness;
Ensure and enable consumer involvement:
- In the planning and design of services appropriate to their needs
- In informed decision-making about their treatment and care;
- Ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander involvement in the planning and development of services appropriate to their needs.
