Grow Community Mental Health – South Australia
(Submission to the Social Development Committee)
Mental Health and the NDIS
Thank you for the opportunity to submit to this committee. I believe that many from our sector including the Mental Health Coalition and Commission have spoken with you and I trust that they have accurately portrayed our position in general and that of the sector. I can perhaps just give a very brief overview of our particular position without necessarily going into data and statistics as you would have had previously from MHCSA and MHC etc.
We have some obvious concerns around the transition and what it means for people who attend Grow in general, namely that the apparent (original) unilateral funding reduction for Mental Health services in SA based on NDIS transition is not representative of the cohort of people that attend our therapeutic mental health groups. I acknowledge that there has been a shift to different funding arrangements going forward, although it has not yet been resolved.
We have over 400 individuals with identified mental illness attend Grow each as per our contract. Each person is able to avail themselves of up to 50 weekly group sessions over the course of the year and other activities as listed later. We have very few that qualify for NDIS services (less than a handful currently) and it is likely to remain that way as the cohort we mainly work with are not ‘total and permanent disability’. Our funding is currently $539,000. Furthermore, anyone attending that has qualified for an NDIS package has not done so through Grow but has been referred to other services with capacity to help process these applications. We simply do not have capacity to do that. Our structure is very thin and intentionally so, as to promote and foster peer led and enabled leadership and mentoring under staff guidance and supervision through peer group-based therapy, not individual therapy.
At Grow we know that, one of, if not THE, key factor for people with mental health issues is isolation. Almost all attendees express this. Grow’s easily accessible weekly groups create a safe community for them to connect and actually express and be challenged, supported and guided to work on their problems. Many will, as a natural consequence of being involved in weekly mental health meetings for a time, return to work or maintain employment, relationships, reduce need for hospitalization, maintain their housing and so on.
They will say to us ‘…. being able to talk about my problems with friends in my weekly Grow group, that’s helped me to hold onto my job (sic)’
While employment is not the reason we exist, (improving mental health and enabling attendees to be contributing members of their community is) we know that having this weekly group meeting accessible all year round has a major influence on the cohort that attend Grow. In fact, Grow’s national statistic sits at 38% of respondents say that attending their weekly Grow Group helps them maintain their employment.
transition. Grow did not qualify or was not party to any of this money as we did not provide those services for those clients.
Our services are extremely cost effective, providing therapy, leadership, mentoring and a safe, intentional community of recovery.
In fact, with the advent of NDIS we are seeing an opposite effect, people flowing to our state based funded service. Based on the inflows this year since January 2019 we will be potentially catering to a larger cohort that likely won’t qualify or receive services elsewhere, especially if unsuccessful with packages or even after transition. Ordinarily we provide ongoing services to 400 people in one year. As of May 2019 we are already at 465.
Moving away from State based block funding or reducing it would be akin to a house of cards. These reductions would affect Grow’s structure and recovery-based program far more significantly. It also means that cohort to who we cater for, which works extremely well, would be displaced and unable to attain services fram NDIS providers. We would naturally assume, with the lack of local community-based connection and increased isolation, some of these would head to Emergency departments, inability to maintain employment and so on.
If Grow were to enter the NDIS market in SA, it would for new clients that we don’t currently cater for, with new one on one programs that we don’t currently provide and require an investment of startup funds that we don’t currently have.
Signed
Darryl Ballestrin, Manager, Grow SA
Unit 1/355 Brighton Rd, Hove SA 5048
PO Box 606 Hove SA 5048
Ph. (08) 8298 9299 E darryl.ballestrin@grow.org.au