Book of Proceedings: Year of the Family: A Multi-Faceted Approach to Improving Engagement with Families and Carers

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By March 30, 2017 No Comments

Authors: Bethany Pade and Carolyn Durrant, NSW

Year: 2016

Event: 2016 TheMHS Conference

Subject: Book of Proceedings 2016, conference papers, proceedings papers

Type of resource: Conference Presentations and Papers

ISBN: 978-0-9945702-1-5

Abstract: Paper from TheMHS Conference 2016 Book of Proceedings: People. Authenticity Starts in the Heart. The Conference was held in Auckland, New Zealand 23 - 26 August 2016.

We have known for a long time that mental health services need to engage with the family members or carers of the people who use the service. As a public mental health service we reviewed our practice to determine how much contact we had with carers, and what type of contact we had. Results of a file audit showed that carers were contacted for only 43% of the people who used the service. We identified six barriers that proved to be equally significant, and this indicated that a multi-faceted approach would be required. We launched Year of the Family as a twelve-month project to address the range of barriers. Half-way through the project we can demonstrate some success with regard to buy-in. At the completion of the project we will undertake another file audit to determine if the project has increased the amount and quality of contact community mental health clinicians have with family members.

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