Opportunites to Improve Services in Public Hospital MH

Hi @EternalFlower

I used to work at community mental health for my local governement service in NSW and one of my duties was to collect data from our participants via the YES surveys. From my understanding it's a a national initiative.

I would call participants who were yet to fill out the surveys and help them fill them out if they wanted. I would then go through them with our TL and pass on feedback to staff who had worked with those participants. I know this was done in other services within my local health district too. The data was then passed on to higher ups and as you say, go to an independent body. So they are definitely worth filling in. The feedback is acknowledged (or should be!).

Hanami

Hi @hanami thanks so much for the input I don't know too much about them and am learning...you're right appears national....

I was never really encouraged to fill it out by my clibicans or supports at all and they sort of actually hid it from us in a way. When it was mentioned I just thought it was a feedback form for the service.

You would've really been appreciated for helping people fill them out. Do you know if they are only able to be filled out certain times of year?

In my case the form was anonymous and asked not to identify any particular staff.

I did write that I felt the service was lacking access to peer support which is valuable to me.

@EternalFlower yes you can fill them out anytime of the year. They are meant to be anonymous yes. But when I called people if they needed help filling out (especially older people with sight issues) I would know who was their clinician/case manager so my TL would encourage me to share the info so the clinician could do better, improve etc where there were issues. As a peer worker I often feel like I wasn't 'utilised' enough by clinicians. Some would involve me all the time but others were skeptical as to what a peer worker could offer. Slowly things are changing but gosh it takes time, hey.

Hanami

Hi @hanami I feel peer workers can be misused sometimes.

One concern I have also is how the service finds peer work with lived experience that related to their consumers.

I had a peer worker who did not identify as having a mental illness and had not accessed mh services and it didn't work for me

I think sometimes consumers don't see the value of peer work because they haven't experienced it yet and that having peer workers in as many services as possible helps consumers get familiar with the concept.

As for me, I always ask to access one at every service I use because it is so helpful