Mental Health Drug & Alcohol

31 July 2018

www.nslhd.health.nsw.gov.au

Facebook: www.facebook.com/NSLHD.MHDA

News

Celebrating NAIDOC week —page 3

Hornsby person centered care initiatives—page 4

New librarian—page 7

Director’s report

- Andrea Taylor

Page 1 | NSLHD Mental Health Drug & Alcohol News | 31 July 2018

The quality, variety and general

fabulousness of art produced by

consumers never ceases to amaze and

delight me. Anyone who has stepped into

the MHDA Directorate in the Cameron

Building will attest to the vast and engaging art collection

we have acquired over the years.

All of the art has been created by consumers. Much of it

has been purchased from the InsideOut Gallery at

Macquarie Hospital, with a few pieces from other

exhibitions of mental health consumers in other galleries,

and a few pieces on loan.

I was delighted to show one of the local artists, Fred

Petrovic, his painting in its new home. His piece hangs on

the wall of the West Wing Meeting Room, and contrasts

beautifully with the adjacent orange feature wall and

warm timber meeting table. It’s only recently been hung

and there have been many positive comments about it

already.

I’ve recently started building an expert team to respond to

the 19 recommendations from the independent review of

seclusion, restraint and observation of consumers with a

mental illness in NSW Health facilities, working closely

with Virginia Armour (NSLHD Clinical Governance), Libby

Waugh (Clinical Redesign Project Officer, MHDA) and

Wendy Wu (Consumer Peer Worker, MHDA).

At this stage we have reviewed the recommendations and

plan, and are in the process of establishing a committee to

oversee the project.

More information about the review, including the

recommendations report, is available at:

www.health.nsw.gov.au/patients/mentalhealth/Pages/

default.aspx

Finally, I encourage you to complete our quick, five-minute

survey regarding our community engagement approaches.

Our goal is to engage with consumers, carers and the

community in an accessible, consistent and meaningful

way, because we believe that effective and genuine

community, consumer and carer engagement results in

improved quality and safety of care and services, supports

effective partnerships, awareness and collaboration.

Feedback from staff, consumers, carers, and staff in

partner organisations about our community engagement

approach is important to us. It will be used to improve the

community engagement options and approaches.

You can access the survey here:

www.surveymonkey.com/r/MHDAengage

Spread the good news

Share your news, achievements and events with your colleagues, or let us know what you’d like to hear more about in the newsletter.

Contact Kate Jeffrey at Kate.Jeffrey@health.nsw.gov.au or on

88775340 to submit your story.

Publication is at the discretion of the editor. Items may be edited for

length, style and quality.

Above: Fred Petrovich and his painting in West Wing Meeting Room.

Page 2 | NSLHD Mental Health Drug & Alcohol News | 31 July 2018

Attachment-based family therapy (ABFT)

NSLHD Child & Youth Mental Health Service (CYMHS) were

delighted to bring people together from across NSW for a

one day workshop with Dr Suzanne Levy, Director of the

Attachment-based family therapy (ABFT) training program,

Drexel University Philadelphia and one of the three co-

developers of the model.

Approximately 140 mental health professionals from

NSLHD CYMHS, other CYMHS teams from as far afield as

the Riverina, school counsellors and private providers

attended the workshop.

ABFT is an empirically supported treatment specifically

designed to assist young people affected by depression

and suicidal behaviour.

Dr Levy presented an overview of the model and the

treatment tasks that provide a map for delivering this

interpersonally focused psychotherapy effectively.

Her lively presentation included video demonstrations of

each of the core ABFT treatment tasks.

Thirty NSLHD CYMHS clinicians (pictured below) attended

an additional two days of intensive skills-based training to

explore the model in greater depth and engaged in

substantial role play practice. Of this group, 26 have gone

on to join cross-team small supervision groups to assist in

applying the training to their clinical work with young

people and families.

The training has been very well received. The following

are a few comments from participants:

“I just wanted to acknowledge and endorse how very

helpful the ABFT three day training and ongoing

supervision has been for my learning and clinical practice.

I cannot recommend it enough!”

“Incredibly insightful and informative.”

“It was perfectly applicable to the work I do. The approach

truly meets the needs of our client population; a therapy

that is really helpful for children, young people and

parents.“

By Diana Simes

Bring your dog to work day

On June 22 the Hornsby Hospital mental health

team celebrated ‘bring your dog to work day’ -

an international event designed to raise

awareness of the positive impact pets can have

on employee productivity and wellbeing.

The Hornsby team enjoyed the company of Jay

Jay and Milo for the day. The pups brought

laughter and happiness to consumers and staff.

By Mel Perry

Page 3| NSLHD Mental Health Drug & Alcohol News | 31 July 2018

NAIDOC celebrations NAIDOC celebrations are always a big deal in NSLHD, and

2018 was no different.

There was the official raising of the Aboriginal and Torres

Strait Islander flags at Royal North Shore Hospital and

incredible musical and dance performances at both Royal

North Shore Hospital and Macquarie Hospital.

This year marked the launch of the NSLHD Aboriginal

Health Hall of Fame, in acknowledgement of this year’s

theme: ‘Because of her, we can’. Four influential local

women who have made a difference in Aboriginal Health

were recognised, including Allison White, MHDA

Community Partnerships Coordinator (pictured right with

Christina Anu and Deb Willcox (NSLHD CE).

The Macquarie Hospital crowd were treated to moving

performances from Kyle Freeman, proud Wiradji man, on

the yiddaki and clapsticks, the An Taran Dance Troupe

from the Torres Strait and performances by our multi-

talented

Aboriginal

Health team.

Page 4 | NSLHD Mental Health Drug & Alcohol News | 31 July 2018

Person Centred Care Feature The adult inpatient mental health services at Hornsby

Hospital have been involved in a number of best practice

initiatives within the remit of Safe Wards, Productive

Wards, Essentials of Care and practice development.

These initiatives aim to deliver care to Hornsby

consumers, which provides a person centred approach

whilst assuring protective time with their nurses,

establishing better resources for consumers and reducing

conflict.

Adult Mental Health Inpatient Unit (AMHU)

The AMHU has a number of Essentials of Care and practice

development projects underway, including the continued

use of a Virtual Patient File designed to support new staff

in the admission, key coordination and discharge

processes. A flow chart has also been developed

addressing the process of supporting consumers who

request and repeal for discharge in accordance with the

Mental Health Act.

Consumer and visitor welcome packs have been

developed to ensure both consumers and carers feel

welcome and informed in the unit. Carers are also

encouraged to participate in a Carer Support Group that

runs regularly on the unit.

AMHU also runs a Music and Memory Program and is

looking at integrating Sensory Modulation on the unit.

If that isn’t enough, AMHU has been running Productive

Wards (pictured right) for the last couple of years to

ensure consumers receive quality one on one time with

their nurse on each shift.

Mental Health Intensive Care Unit (MHICU)

The MHICU has an established Safe Wards program which

is now fully integrated into their practice. To further

reduce the incidence of seclusion MHICU have two

projects running. The first is ‘assertive de-escalation’

which minimises time spent in seclusion; the second,

registered with the Clinical Excellence Commission, aims

to minimise the incidence of seclusion by clinicians

spending time in the seclusion room with the consumer,

enabling time for medication to work in a safe and

supportive environment.

Additional projects include the implementation of the

sensory room (pictured below, top), a YouTube group with

an emphasis on music and the purchase of a tablet to run

mindfulness apps. In addition, MHICU is a year into the

Productive Wards program.

Psychiatric Emergency Care Centre (PECC)

Hornsby’s PECC held a planning day last month. Within

the day there was a Core Values workshop and Essentials

of Care team building session. Dr Jina Jose discussed the

effect of intoxication on consumers awaiting mental

health admission and Sam Mbereko, Clinical Nurse

Consultant, gave a talk on his trauma informed care

project.

By Jo Gunter

Hornsby Adult Mental HealthHornsby Adult Mental HealthHornsby Adult Mental Health

Page 5 | NSLHD Mental Health Drug & Alcohol News | 31 July 2018

The Hornsby Mental Health executive team have

embarked on an initiative to walk a day in shoes of the

staff.

Leading the way, Service Director Leanne Frizzel did a

Friday late shift in the Mental Health Intensive Care Unit

(MHICU).

Leanne enjoyed working along staff and consumers. She

shared her observations about the experience at the

executive planning day.

The MHICU is an intensive clinical area and Leanne

reported how impressed she was at how staff were fully

engaged in consumer’s needs; they were consistently

attentive, which assisting in managing and preventing

clinical issues.

Food quality and activity options were noted as the crucial

issues for consumers. Consumers of MHICU reported the

best things about the unit were the kind hearted, friendly,

helpful, caring, understanding and funny staff. They liked

the holistic approach to recovery, as well as the music and

memory program in place. The new artwork in the unit

and sensory room were also highlighted.

Walk a day in my shoes at Hornsby

Afternoon Tea with Andrea Afternoon Tea with Andrea has been happening across the

service each year for several years now. It’s an

opportunity for people connected with MHDA to get

together and talk face to face.

The events include a free afternoon tea, many different

service representatives from Health and the non-

government / community managed sector attend and

share brochures and service information, as well as carers

and consumers.

Dates have been set for three of our four annual events,

with the Northern Beaches event still in the planning

stage.

Hornsby: 31 July, 2.30pm to 4pm at Magpies Waitara.

Macquarie Hospital: Tuesday 21 August, 2.30pm to 4pm

at Northern Sydney Education Centre (NSEC) on campus.

North Shore Ryde: Tuesday 23 October, 3pm to 4.30pm in

the Guringai Room at RNS Community Health Centre.

For more information, or to

RSVP (essential), please contact

Kate Jeffrey at

kate.jeffrey@health.nsw.gov.au

The signs are changing! With the release of the 10 year

State wide Service Plan in 2017 came a new name:

OPMHS.

The somewhat unwieldy SMHSOP (often pronounced as

‘shmop’) has become the sleek OPMHS, which stands for

Older People’s Mental Health Services.

The name change is slowly but surely infiltrating the

service, in email signatures and on buildings and

fixtures.

The service plan itself guides the further development

of mental health services for older people across NSW,

expanding services in the community and particularly

for people in residential aged care facilities.

The team at the NSW Health OPMHS Strategic Unit are

currently working on a plan to assist NSLHD to implement

the State wide Service Plan.

For further information about this please contact Andrew

Clement, OPMHS Program Manager on 9887 5933.

What’s an OPMHS? By Emma Underwood

By Mel Perry

Page 6 | NSLHD Mental Health Drug & Alcohol News | 31 July 2018

Quality assist for Junior Medical Officers The quality teams from the general hospital and mental

health service at Hornsby have joined forces to engage

Junior Medical Officers (JMOs) in quality improvement

actvities.

The JMOs participate in a series of six workshops, and

through the process engage in implementing a quality

improvement project.

Projects underway include -

Decrease ordering of post-surgical blood tests by 30%

in 4 months

Valproate medicines education and review

Reduce unplanned readmissions for patients admitted

medically

Improving fluid management in the elderly and

confused improving the number of patients on the

septic pathway

The program, now in its third year, is optional for JMOs to

attend, and includes six after-hours workshops a

year. The program teaches a number quality

improvement concepts and tools, including driver

diagrams; tools for improvement, measurement

and variation; team dynamics; and the importance

of project sponsorship.

Cain Byrnes, Melanie Perry & Jane Edwards (self-

confessed quality tragics) act as quality improvement

advisers to the projects.

The program itself is evaluated each year, with findings

indicating positive improvement in JMO knowledge. The

best quality feedback for the program is that some JMOs

choose to do the program again when they have another

project idea—clearly they find it useful!

The final results from the projects will be presented in

December.

Mel Perry (Quality Risk Manager, Hornsby Mental Health)

said: “It has been wonderful to see the program grow and

develop over the three years. Junior medical staff have a

fresh view and perspective on the organisation we work

in. I love watching them grow from the intern year to

senior RMOs and see their continued passion for quality

improvement. The program gives them a quality

improvement structure to improve any issue they may find

through their career.”

Above: the current JMO team are all smiles after workshop four

My Health Record Every individual known to Medicare or the Department of

Veterans' Affairs will automatically get a My Health Record

unless they decide not to have one.

The opt-out period runs from now until 15 October 2018.

Currently, more than 5.8 million Australians have a My

Health Record. The HealtheNet Clinical Portal allows

clinicians to view information in a consumers My Health

Record and also share documents from NSW Health, which

then gives all health care providers, both inside and

outside the public health system, access to information

that may assist with diagnosis and treatment.

Consumer information packs are also being distributed.

For more information on My Health Record please go to

www.myhealthrecord.gov.au or contact the dedicated

Helpline via 1800 723 471.

The expansion of My Health Record provides NSW Health

with a great opportunity to support a digital health

infrastructure that will produce enormous benefits for

health consumers into the future.

By Mel Perry

Above (L-R): Michele O’Brien, Mental Health Librarian; Goldie the Library Guard Dog.

Page 7 | NSLHD Mental Health Drug & Alcohol News | 31 July 2018

Family connections and borderline personality disorder

Mental Health Family Workers, Penny Feillafe and Liz

Peters, ran a Family Connections Course earlier this year.

Family Connections is a 12 week education, skills and

support group for people supporting someone who

experiences emotional dysregulation or Borderline

Personality Disorder.

Twelve family members participated each week to talk

about their experiences, provide each other with support

and learn and practice new skills, such as how to validate,

practicing acceptance and using problem management

skills. There was always time for everyone to talk and

plenty of food and drinks to share thanks to the well

organised snacks roster.

“The people in the group were fantastic, we shared and

learned from each other” reported one participant.

Many participants reported “knowing we are not alone” as

a key positive outcome from the group.

They were grateful for the opportunity to learn some

strategies to de-escalate stressful situations and most

importantly for families and carers to look after

themselves, something we called ‘putting yourself back on

your to-do list’!

Thanks to everyone who joined the group and made it

such a warm and accepting time to meet. The Family and

Carer Mental Health Program team plan to run another

group later in the year. If you would like to know when

the next group will run in Northern Sydney Local Health

District please contact Penny Feillafe, Senior Family

Worker at Penny.feillafe@health.nsw.gov.au

For more information about Borderline Personality

Disorder and the Family Connections Program see:

www.bpdaustralia.com

Quality information on Borderline Personality Disorder is

also available at: https://www.projectairstrategy.org/

index.html

Michele O’Brien, our new librarian, has now been with us

for two months and the library is open for business once

again.

Michele comes to us from the Research & Policy

Information Centre at the Brotherhood of St Laurence

in Melbourne.

She has a keen interest in mental health issues and

over 25 years’ experience managing Library and

Information Services in Australia and London.

Michele can help staff with research enquiries,

literature searches, book orders and article

downloads. Staff can call, email or complete the

request form on the NSLHD Libraries page on the

intranet.

The Mental Health Library is based on campus at

Macquarie Hospital in Building 30 (just behind Tarban

Unit) and Michele would love you to drop by and see her.

The library is a lovely space and includes plenty of printed

reference material (books and journals), four networked

computers, printing facilities, a couch and a kitchen.

Library hours are 8am to 4pm Monday to Friday.

Introducing Michele, Mental Health Librarian

By Penny Feilafe

Page 8 | NSLHD Mental Health Drug & Alcohol News | 31 July 2018

Let’s talk about wounds... and cupcakes Wound awareness may not at first seem like a high

priority in a mental health setting, however wounds are a

risk for anyone with reduced mobility, spending lots of

time in the same position and also with age and some

medication side effects that can make the skin weak.

Staff from Lavender House (pictured right), the older

people’s inpatient unit at Macquarie Hospital, recently

enjoyed a wound and pressure injury in-service facilitated

by Emma Underwood, Clinical Nurse Consultation from

the Older People’s Mental Health Service.

Consumer and carer education

related to wounds was discussed in response to this years

theme: “Let’s Talk About Wounds”.

Risk factors for chronic wounds and pressure injuries and

how these impact on mental health consumers were also

discussed.

The practical education came with cupcakes iced to

represent various stages of pressure injury (pictured

below), which the staff had to classify, and then got to eat

(eww but yum, and no doubt memorable!).

Wound Facts

Every day nearly half a million

Australians suffer from a

chronic wound, costing close

to $3 billion annually.

People with chronic wounds

are predisposed to mental

health concerns such as

depression, anxiety, social

isolation, changes to body

image and decreased quality

of life. Stage I Stage II Stage III Stage IV Unstageable Suspected deep tissue

Social Workers: leaders ~ advocates ~ champions

Over 50 social workers attended the MHDA Social Work

Professional Development Day 2018 which was held on 5

July at Macquarie Hospital.

Andrea Taylor, Director MHDA and social worker,

welcomed Catherine Lourey, Commissioner, Mental

Health Commission of NSW, who spoke about the

Commissions role and initiatives. Ashleigh Mills, senior

advisor, systems monitoring and review of Mental Health

Commission of NSW shared her experience as a social

worker moving from face-to-face practice to mental health

policy roles. Other speakers included: Lynne Harrold,

National Vice President of Australian Association of Social

Workers and former social worker at Ryde Mental Health

Service; Janice Plain, MHDA Allied Health Manager; and

Julia Capper, Director Allied Health, NSLHD. Amanda Kelly

with lived experience spoke about creative active

pathways to mental health wellbeing and understanding.

By Raymond Selvaraj

By Emma Underwood

Compliments

Northern Beaches Mental Health Services: to Adam and

Greg, Peer Workers, from the manager of the Assertive

Outreach Team, thanking them for their professional and

compassionate involvement in supporting a consumer and

made a positive difference on the clinical outcome.

Mental Health Drug & Alcohol: to David for his

exceptional Excel skills in assisting to analyse YES data for

a project.

To Jenny (HASI Plus Clinician) and Emily (Community

Service Worker, Mission Australia) received thanks from

the mother of a HASI Plus consumer recently, who said

that it was clear in the NDIS planning meeting that they

were both well prepared and had the consumers best

interest at heart. She noted their professionalism and the

great teamwork between Jenny, Emily, the consumer and

the carer, noting that each of them had the same first

three goals. She said: “Please don’t ever minimise the

importance of the work that you do. The effort that you

put in to make a positive difference for clients’ who are

very disadvantaged is impressive. The positive impact goes

way beyond the clients’ care and wellbeing. It has a

positive effect on families, friends and ultimately the wider

community as well. With very much gratitude and thanks.”

North Shore Ryde Mental Health Services: from a carer to

Elizabeth and the RNS AOT, who worked closely with the

consumer and carer to adjust medication and treatment

and support the consumer to go travelling: “Many thanks

for contributing to his recovery and being this helpful and

efficient in his care and I truly appreciate your caring

attitude and excellent work.”

To the nurses in the Psychiatric Emergency Care Centre

(PECC RNS) from a consumer for the quality care.

To the nursing staff for being friendly and helpful in the

general acute inpatient unit at RNS from a consumer.

North Shore Drug & Alcohol Team: online feedback

complimenting the lovely lady who answered the phone.

We are conducting a short, five minute survey and would appreciate your input.

We are aiming to improve our community engagement approaches. What do you

think about this newsletter? The Facebook page? Consumer representation on

committees? Afternoon Tea with Andrea? We’d love to hear from you.

Take the survey now: www.surveymonkey.com/r/MHDAengage

Thank you, headspace team!

While the headspace services at

Brookvale and Chatswood will

continue to provide the

excellent service they always

have for local young people,

NSLHD is no longer the lead

agency running the programs.

We enjoyed celebrating the

amazing service we built

(pictured left) and look forward

to continuing the partnership

with New Horizons, who will

take on the lead role.