Mental Illness Education ACT
Submission to present at theMHS Symposium, 2015.

“Direct Positive Contact and Safe Story Telling –
Sharing our lived experience and changing minds”

Statement of Aims:
Mental Illness Education ACT (MIEACT) has been working in the area of stigma reduction and lived experience for 21 years. MIEACT seeks volunteers either with a direct experience of mental illness or those who care for a person with a lived experience. MIEACT’s education provides the opportunity for people with a lived experience to share their stories safely and for audience members to be able to hear their story in a safe, non-clinical and controlled environment. It is established that MIEACTs method of safe story telling (Do No Harm framework) assists in reducing stigma, while providing listeners with the opportunity to ask real-time questions about illness, recovery, what works and what could improve. The theMHS conference provides MIEACT with the opportunity to further share our unique methodology in relation to reducing stigma through direct positive contact and safe story telling.

Direct Positive Contact and Safe Story Telling:
Central to our methodology is an effort to increase self-help seeking behaviour through the practice of stigma and discrimination reduction. Within the Do No Harm framework and the story telling process, MIEACT has identified the value of direct positive contact, which further unpacks the recovery approach of encouraging and fostering direct contact with people with a lived experience through sharing stories while well and healthy within our illness, this approach demonstrates recovery in action.

Direct contact within the context of mental health is established within the field of mental health and illness, yet MIEACT strives to ensure that our volunteers contact with the broader community is a positive experience, highly informative and held in high regard. Not only is there an impact on the recipients of our stories, when we present while healthy and well, through anecdotal evidence we have identified that most of our volunteers also find sharing their story through the direct positive contact method to be a affirmative experience also.

Positive intergroup contact is a methodology that is used in the area of cultural awareness and de-stigmatisation in relation to nationality, ethnicity and race1. MIEACT works within the contact hypothesis model which states that direct positive contact (in this case with people with a mental health issue/illness) can act to reduce prejudice, lessen oversimplification of mental illness and recovery and can act to reducing generalising sentiment, which feeds stigma.

The diversity of stories which MIEACT volunteers share acts towards enhancing community settings through positive engagement between general populations and those with a mental illness, acting to reduce the “us and them” divergence so commonly experienced as part of the broader stigma picture. MIEACT provides a context in which we can begin to safely share our stories, contribute to the broader picture of recovery and treatment, increase the likelihood of audience participants seeking help and to lessen the likelihood of discrimination towards people with a lived experience.

MIEACT provides the community and it’s volunteers with the following:
• A positive contact space2
• A framework of ‘Do No Harm’ which enables stories to be shared safely
• On-going support and development of our volunteers
• Tailored training in relation to Do No Harm, story telling and direct positive contact
• A vehicle to bring the narrative and (unconscious) bias of “us and them” closer together resulting in a more inclusive community
• The reduction of stigma through the use of story telling and the intersection of narrative
• Opportunity for young people and other community members to ask real-time questions about recovery and mental illness
• A diverse model, which attracts an array of volunteers from all walks of life and demonstrates that mental illness has no boundaries.
• A safe environment in which people can discuss mental health and illness free of judgment
• A peer led organisation, with volunteers as Board members, team members and volunteer education deliverers and developers
• A rich and diverse array of mental health issues are represented, from body image issues, depression, bipolar, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and schizophrenia amongst others

MIEACT’s topic remains relevant to the mental health sector, and more broadly to mental health and recovery practice, providing opportunity for organisations and individuals to participate in our education as part of awareness that we all carry with us some unconscious bias. The use of direct positive contact through safe story telling begins to shift our bias through the use of positive contact spaces and events. The MIEACT model is developed through the understanding that there is no wrong question, all questions lead to a greater understanding of the ways in which we can improve services, improve health outcomes and further integrate and value the lived experience into all facets of our community.

Australian and international research shows that although there are effective treatments for gambling problems, professional help seeking is low. A potential source of influence for change and earlier help-seeking are those in the person’s social network. With support from a grant from the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, MHFA Australia developed guidelines for how a member of the public can give assistance to a person with gambling problems.

The guidelines are being developed using the Delphi expert consensus method. Participants from English speaking, Western cultures were recruited to join one of three expert panels: professionals with experience treating or researching gambling problems; people with the lived experience of problem gambling who are currently managing their gambling problems and are in an advocacy/peer support role; and affected others who are in an advocacy/peer support role.

The final guidelines include actions that received a high level of endorsement from all panels, and will be published and made freely available to the public via the Mental Health First Aid Australia website (www.mhfa.com.au), Turning Point operated Gambling Help Online (GHO) website (www.gamblinghelponline.org.au) and the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation website (www.problemgambling.vic.gov.au). The guidelines will also provide the basis for further development of Mental Health First Aid training.

“These competencies are the sandstone I will sharpen my practice on” (addiction peer support worker Elton Hakopa)
Te Pou as a national workforce centre in New Zealand have been working to support the growth and development of the service user, consumer and peer workforce. It became apparent that practice competencies for this workforce would assist with funding, planning and developing consumer and peer roles.
The ‘Competencies for the mental health and addiction service user, consumer and peer competencies’ and guiding documents- ‘Service user, consumer and peer workforce guide for managers and employers’ and ‘Service user, consumer and peer workforce guide for planners and funders’- were launched in November 11th 2014. The intention was to ensure we created mechanisms to employ more peer workers and create meaningful career pathways.
They were developed from a scan of national and international literature and robust consultation and advice from consumer/service user and peer support workers and leaders across New Zealand. This included a reference group of people working in consumer/service user/peer leadership roles from both mental health and addiction.

In this presentation Robyn Shearer (Chief Executive) and Caro Swanson (Service user lead) from Te Pou o Te Wakaaro Nui, will outline the background, purpose, process’s, challenges and triumphs of developing the competencies.
http://www.tepou.co.nz/library/tepou/competencies-for-the-mental-health-and-addiction-service-user-consumer-and-peer-workforce

Learning objective (1)
People will leave understanding the complexity and value of this workforce and the tensions in moving towards a more professional identity
Learning objective (2)
No mental health or addiction service can be properly effective without input, leadership, direction and exposure to people with lived experience of mental health and addiction issues.