Floresco is a new community mental health managed program led by Aftercare as part of a consortium model creating a culture of connectedness and recovery in the West Moreton Region.
Floresco brings to life the concept of providing clear pathways of care through coordinated, collaborative and integrated approaches to service delivery which is fundamental to the National standards for mental health services. Providing access to quality services in a timely manner that supports a holistic person centred recovery approaches is also key as articulated in the National framework for recovery orientated mental health services.
Floresco progresses the vision of Aftercare “Together for social and emotional well-being” and all our partners by ensuring the experience of consumers and carers is of high quality and that there is “no wrong door” to access the service.
Relationships are vital within this model to ensure that all the best possible referral pathways are offered both internally and externally. Floresco shares resources with its consortia partners and external agencies to find innovative solutions to reduce hospital admissions and discharge into homelessness, while enabling the skill development and social participation of individuals and their family/carers.
Floresco works with clinical and non-clinical sectors, employment and housing sectors, and combines Commonwealth and State community mental health funding, including MBS into an integrated business model. The overall aim is to enhance the consumer and family experience resulting from one intake, assessment, and triage process; one care plan; one client information management system; and one set of agreed outcome measures.

A diversion from emergency, hospital or acute services for people experiencing mental health deterioration due to social stressors, Crisis Respite – Residential and Home-based was introduced in SA in 2014 as a new component of a stepped system of care. This model is based on the theory: respite in a residential or home-based setting supported by a clinical & psycho-social support team would result in reduced distress and eliminate or decrease the need for emergency, hospital or acute services. This session will share the crisis respite model, the theory underpinning the service and the following learnings thus far:
- embedding the practice of assessing, facilitating & diverting consumers in crisis from emergency and acute settings
- mechanisms & approaches facilitating crisis support into practice, alleviating distress and mental health deterioration
- the limited but still emerging evidence of the effectiveness of crisis respite in responding to deteriorating mental health
- consumer views of what makes the experience of crisis respite different to emergency, hospital or acute settings.
- establishing joint venture service delivery systems and program through a Ngo and public sector partnership
Delivered through a partnership approach between Neami National and SA Health, this presentation will assist participants who are interested in innovation, new pathways to care & service delivery implementation.

This presentation will introduce the Waitemata Provider Executive Group (PEG). PEG has become a cohesive membership, with a shared commitment and strong sense of “we”. In 2015 PEG members recognizes that “we” are responsible for the development and provision of mental health service across the Waitemata region.

From the start PEG has been co-chaired by hospital and NGO members. For the last 2 years PEG has been conducting a “stocktake” of all the services provided across Waitemata, with a view to better understanding “what is available” to then enable people who may need / with to use services to better understand “what is available”. We have challenged ourselves to avoid the technical names of our services. Instead for each we are asking “what can this service provided my family / whānau?”.

This presentation will introduce PEG, in the context of a “collective impact” initiative, how it was established, and key factors that enabled PEG to be sustained and to grow. The benefits, both tangible and in-tangible will be illustrated. Finally, the process and findings of the stocktake will be discussed, and the challenges that this information presents to us, in the face of our commitment to “Rising to the challenge”.

The National Evaluation of the Better Access Program in 2011 revealed people from low socio-economic areas were less likely to access Better Access services than people from other areas. Healthy Minds is a new mental health service designed by Primary Health Network (NCPHN) to remove the barriers vulnerable people experience when considering accessing mental health services.

Healthy Minds is managed by NCPHN and funded by the Australian Government. NCPHN supports vulnerable people by working in partnership with 24 community organisations. Recognising the often complex needs of people with a mental illness, the partner organisations include employment agencies, women's shelters, Aboriginal Medical Services, homelessness services and youth services.

Under Healthy Minds, mental health practitioners are co-located within these organisations. These partnerships not only improve access the mental health services, they facilitate the integration of mental services within established community services. This enhances the support available to clients with complex social needs and facilitates communication and connection to services.

This approach has more than doubled the number of access points for psychological services across the North Coast of NSW; increased the number of sessions delivered; increased capacity for the community organisations involved and reduced the average cost per session for the NCPHN.