As we count down to the TheMHS Sydney Forum 2026, we’re excited to continue our interview series spotlighting the speakers who will help shape the conversation around help when you need it – urgent and crisis support in mental health.
In these short, light-touch interviews, we invite speakers to share their perspectives, experiences, and the insights that guide their work — offering a chance to get to know the people behind the presentations ahead of the Forum.
We’re excited to welcome Jonathan Harms, whose expertise and perspective will help guide conversations on effective crisis response and creating meaningful support when it matters most.
BIOGRAPHY
Jonathan Harms was born in Perth, Western Australia, studying arts and law at UWA. He has worked in various capacities in government, as a plaintiff lawyer in private practice and in community managed organisations and private corporations. He joined Mental Health Carers (ARAFMI) NSW in 2009, becoming CEO in 2012.
He has worked with MHCN to amplify the voice of carers, supporting the co-design of the Mental Health Carer Advocacy Network Register, which seeks to engage carers in NSW directly with MHCN through regular communications like a weekly eNews and regular meetings, such as the Mental Health Carer Connection Meeting and the Carers of Forensic and Corrections Patients Network. Under his leadership in October 2022, MHCN won the systemic advocacy responsibilities for psychosocial disability in NSW under the Department of Communities and Justice’s ‘Disability Advocacy Futures.
He has been a member of the MHCC’s board since 2012 and in 2025 joined the board of Mental Health Carers Australia. More recently he has joined the Mental Health Alliance in NSW, (with Being and the RANZCP, etc.), and currently chairs this advocacy group.
The highlight of my career so far was hosting the 50th Anniversary Celebration for MHCN in December 2024, followed by MHCN achieving accreditation in 2020.
I was drawn to the work because I knew mental health was a complex, major problem area for Australia’s health system and for many families and carers including my own. Once I started working in it, I came to realise how threadbare, disconnected and inadequate our ‘system’ is and how mental health problems had impacted my life in many, many ways, including my brother dying as a result of his mental health problems and the lack of appropriate care for him. This has greatly deepened my commitment to achieving mental health reform for NSW and Australia.
Mental Health Carers NSW was founded over 50 years ago by friends and family of people with mental health concerns, outraged by the coercive, ineffective and inhumane treatment their loved ones received (if they ever got any help). In over 50 years of existence we have seen the large mental health institutions closed, but the services in the community for the people with serious to severe mental health issues have STILL not been built. It is therefore critical that all people who want to see the human rights of people with mental health issues being respected and supported by a safe, accessible, effective, fair and fully funded mental health system must take decisive action if they want to see this system built. Join us and the struggle for an effective mental health system and the rights of carers and the people they care for under it!
More people should know about the great importance of their relationships and the way that they treat other people, because this can have a massive impact on the self-perception, the expectations of people for themselves and others and even their hopes and therefore chances of recovery. This underpins the notion of ‘relational care’ and it explains what carers can bring to support mental health recovery of the people they care for. But it is not limited to families and carers; the relationships we have and the way we manage them fundamentally underpins the social fabric and quality of life for the whole community.
I am excited by the growing body of knowledge around ‘relational’ aspects of caring and mental health support in general; but also the use of ‘Open Dialogue’ Finnish approaches to psychosis which include drugs as an option and not a panacea for mental health concerns, while achieving great results by using non-drug approaches in tandem with (or as an alternative) to medications.
I like to mediate, to regularly do a little bit of moderate exercise and to occasionally do some drawing or painting.
It means we start providing mental health care to people when they need it, when they present with problems and are hurting and in distress. This contrasts with the current approach of often refusing to provide any care until people are at risk of harm to self or others; or condescending to give people appointments when they present; but in two or three months’ time, when the service can squeeze them in. Care delayed is care denied. We would never tell a person with heart palpitations to leave ED and come back when it’s a full blown heart attack. It isn’t acceptable in mental health care either.
MHCN’s presentation will cover what mental health carers need from a good response to mental health crisis. This means that carers need to be identified and engaged with and their knowledge of the person in crisis should be used to help de-escalate tensions and resolve situations with the minimum use of restraint or resort to violence. Rather the response should contain the risks and re-establish safety and a robust recovery trajectory.
RESOURCES YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN:
HEAR FROM JONATHAN AT THEMHS SYDNEY FORUM 2026
What a Good Crisis Response Looks Like For Australia
Lived Experience Perspective (Carer) — Jonathan and Melissa from Mental Health Carers NSW (MHCN) draw from their own and other mental health carer’s lived experience to outline what good crisis responses look like from the experiences and perspectives of mental health carers and family members across New South Wales.
What a Good Crisis Response Looks Like For Australia – Q&A
This session is a short panel discussion, facilitated by the MC, and gives the audience the opportunity to respond with questions to the speakers from the What a Good Crisis Response Looks Like For Australia session.
Feedback to Panel of Decision Makers
A panel of key decision makers will listen to ideas and priorities emerging from the previous collaboration session and provide closing remarks.
