Help when you need it

Exploring approaches for urgent and crisis support in mental health

People with mental health challenges, their families and communities continually advise that there are many barriers to accessing appropriate mental health support at the right time, and especially during a crisis.

Emergency Departments remain heavily impacted by presentations from people seeking mental health support and, despite best efforts, are unable to provide a suitable response and an environment conducive to crisis resolution, dignified risk-taking, healing and recovery.
There are many recent developments that attempt to provide a more easily accessed and acceptable response during times of crisis but there is still much more that we could do to make seeking help both safe and effective.

This forum will explore some of the best examples of services that are making a difference and that elevate lived experience to shape service delivery and care. We will also look at examples that are fully integrated into the community and which provide incidental and very low stigma access to immediate help.

Join us as we hear from consumers, carers, funders and service providers on what makes a good crisis response and be part of a co-design process to generate ideas for improvement that will be presented to a panel of leading mental health proponents for carriage and action.