The Head to Health centres were established in 2021 and represent a new offering in the mental health service sector. The Canberra centre has taken an adaptive, consumer informed approach to the continuous improvement of the full range of clinical services delivered. This has led to a process of continual improvement, led by consumer demand, suggestion and feedback. From the development of what programs we offer, to the content, duration and those involved in delivery of our clinical programs, we readily integrate consumer feedback.

This symposium is delivered by those involved in the design and delivery of clinical services at Canberra Head to Health and will highlight various programs that have adapted over the time of operations in an iterative manner to better meet the needs of service users. You will hear from the clinical team about how identified gaps, user experience and feedback inform the analysis, review and adaptation of Head to Health’s available services. This approach enables us to provide high quality, constantly evolving services, designed to meet the needs of our consumers and navigate many of the traditional criticisms of the ways services engage consumers’ input.

Paper 1: Consumer engagement at Canberra Head to Health.
An overview of the Centre’s consumer informed approach to development and continuous refinement of clinical services will be discussed. From the beginning of the development phase of launching the centre, there has been a strong consumer-informed design process, which is now an embedded part of our continuous improvement process. This talk will highlight the way we engage with consumers and include a consumer sharing her perspective on opportunities for feedback during and after engagement with the service. Whilst all clinical services are evidence based or evidence informed, we hold the service user experience as key to the delivery of services.

Paper 2: The evolution of a community based dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) program.
The need for this program was identified in the planning stages of the model of care development for our centre. We took a collaborative approach to development and delivery of this program, beginning in early 2023. The program commenced small and has continued to evolve and expand based on consumer feedback and need, including delivery of a ‘summer school’ program over 2023-24 and the inclusion of a peer worker within the skills groups. This paper includes the opportunity to hear from a past consumer sharing her journey and engagement with the program. The DBT program is a valuable and integral part of the clinical offerings at our centre with excellent outcomes demonstrated.

Paper 3: Adapting groups to fit diverse groups
In response to identifying that we had few culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) individuals engaging in our most popular psychoeducation group program, Healthy Coping, we undertook to modify this program to better fit this underserviced population group, thus the evolution of our Strength in Diversity group. Initially we ran the group focused on international students and have since modified it further to fit for a broader cross-section of CALD. We found that whilst CALD individuals were coming into the service, they were not readily engaging with our group programs and wanted to ensure we provided safe and culturally appropriate services. The group was expanded from six to seven sessions, with original content being adapted to include more culturally appropriate examples and language and expanded to include more specific content focused on social connectedness and the stress of assimilation.

Paper 4: Outreach deliver of adapted programs to improve access by vulnerable groups.
At the request of community partners, we have adapted both our standard Healthy Coping group and our processes for intake to deliver these services as outreach into existing organisations with populations recognised as underserviced and hard to reach. This has included delivering the standard Healthy Coping group at a local community sector organisation to a single women’s support group, who met whilst their sons were in a mentoring program. The group was delivered at the time and location the woman already met, taking the program to the population in need, rather than expecting them to attend the centre to access services. The second outreach delivery was to a local youth refuge. We completed our standard intake process and delivered a modified version of the group within the refuge. Again, the group was delivered at a time, location and duration that fit the consumers need. These outreach programs were well received, completed in a timely manner and ensured identified disadvantaged groups can access services, where and when they need.

Roundtable: This symposium will conclude with a roundtable discussion allowing questions and audience interaction with the panel of presenters. This aims to ensure the audience leaves with a good understanding of the adaptive and consumer informed approach this centre takes and how this is shaping the range and type of available services.