Authors: Simon Baker, Jennifer Nicholas, Lee Valentine, Shaunagh O'Sullivan, Zeinab Farahmandpou,r Nicola Chen, Mario Alvarez-Jimenez, Bridget Bassilios, Maria Ftanou, Shaminka Mengelsdorf, Anna Machlin, Andrew Tan, Amy Morgan, Leo Robers, Katrina Schurrah, Long Le, Michelle Banfield, Matthew Spittal, Cathy Mihalopoulos, Jane Pirkis, Jackie Mead, Rachel Green, Sophie Potter, William Campos
Year: 2022
Event: 2022 TheMHS Conference
Subject: digital mental health, services
Type of resource: Conference Presentations and Papers
Abstract: PANEL PRESENTATION: Using blended care to overcome the challenges faced by youth mental health services
Simon Baker, Jennifer Nicholas, Lee Valentine, Shaunagh O'Sullivan, Zeinab Farahmandpou,r Nicola Chen, Mario Alvarez-Jimenez
Youth mental health services face a number of challenges, such as an inability to keep up with demand, low levels of engagement and retention, variable fidelity to evidence-based practice, and a lack of ongoing relapse support. Digital mental health solutions have the scope to address these challenges by working in tandem with services to provide blended forms of care (1). Blended approaches retain the strengths of in-person treatment while enabling synergistic, integrated, engaging digital support. However, such approaches are rare in practice, and research is scant on clinical effectiveness, engagement, and ingredients for successful integration, particularly within young mental health care.
Orygen Digital’s Moderated Online Social Therapy (MOST; 2) service is being delivered as part of routine care in over 70 youth mental health services across Victoria, Queensland, and New South Wales. This presentation will report insights and preliminary findings from the delivery of MOST, highlighting: opportunities and challenges associated with its implementation; ways in which young people engage with the digital service; and how MOST benefits young people in terms of their mental health, wellbeing, and functioning. We will explore how embedding MOST into practice has required connections across mental health research, lived experience, and clinical service sectors.
PANEL PRESENTATION: Integrating digital mental health services in Australia’s mental health service landscape
Bridget Bassilios, Maria Ftanou, Shaminka Mengelsdorf, Anna Machlin, Andrew Tan, Amy Morgan, Leo Robers, Katrina Schurrah, Long Le, Michelle Banfield, Matthew Spittal, Cathy Mihalopoulos, Jane Pirkis
Our team at the University of Melbourne's Centre for Mental Health was commissioned by the Department of Health to evaluate three key Australian government funded digital mental health services (DMHSs): Mental Health Online, MindSpot and THIS WAY UP. These services deliver online evidence-based interventions with or without support from a therapist.
We collated and analysed uptake and outcome data from the three DMHSs and consulted with a broad range of stakeholders using online surveys and interviews. Many of these stakeholders had direct experience, and others had no or limited experience, with DMHSs including:
• 351 consumers and 30 providers from the three DMHSs;
• 16 people with lived experience of mental health problems;
• 94 health professionals through their professional associations; and
• 67 other key stakeholders representing 44 organisations in the mental health sector (mental health services, peak bodies, Primary Health Networks, professional associations, universities, government).
We will present data on use and outcomes of services over time. We will also synthesise the views and experiences of stakeholders, focussing on barriers and enablers, and potential solutions and innovations for increasing the use of DMHSs and better integrating them in the mental health services landscape.
PANEL PRESENTATION: Fast Tracking Service Implementation- Innovative Approaches to Recovery and Complex Mental Health
Jackie Mead, Rachel Green, Sophie Potter
With funding from the Commonwealth SANE, a mental health community organisation, has transformed its telephone and digital mental health service, to better meet the needs of those with complex mental health issues. Acknowledging that people with complex mental health issues face specific barriers to participation, SANE partnered with the ALIVE Co-Design Living Labs, to undertake a process involving more than 60 people with lived experience. However what became key for SANE was to not rely on codesign alone, but to take the outputs into an innovative real time test and learn environment by delivering a small scale minimum viable service (MVS) prior to scale up. SANE asked ‘what’s the bare-bones version of this, that’s still delivers impact/outcomes that we could get to service users quickly?’.
This presentation is a case study of how SANE went about transforming our services to have a deeper impact on recovery. We will share details of how the outputs of co-design, combined with MVS have enabled us to evolve the service offering before taking it to scale . This represents an opportunity to hear about the practicalities of working with complexity and the factors that facilitate and inhibit successful digital service delivery.
PANEL PRESENTATION: Transition of care: Online mental health services and community care. Perspectives for future development
William Campos
The last few decades, there has been considerable awareness and advancement in the treatment and care of mental health conditions creating a more accepting society to seek help and services.
In the past few years (particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic), the development of online mental health services has provided an individualised approach to care, supporting people with a lived experience to exercise their rights, choice, and control in their care, treatments, and journey of recovery.
However, the plethora of online services, lack of regulation and inconsistent evidence of treatment outcomes, have placed additional responsibilities to the individual with a mental health condition. We argue that this has fragmented continuity of care, further ostracize family and community connections, increasing experiences of isolation and inadequacies particularly for people experiencing episodes of mental instability.
A key aspect of supporting people experiencing a mental health condition is to connect and engage with family, friends, carers, and community. To support choice control in the journey of recovery there must be a significant component that occurs at a face-to-face level with professionals, care givers and peer led social services.
The online platforms need to integrate seamlessly to assist the enhancement of interaction this includes alleviating administrative barriers to engage with services and facilitate direct personal connection.
Future online services will need to integrate an interactive, team approach to care, to provide a more consistent and stable journey to recovery. This includes plan management, self-paced navigation, inclusion of family and carers as well as connection to appropriate professionals to enhance treatment outcomes.
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