Get Real: Talking mental health & disability

Send us Fan Mail Over summer, we’re revisiting some of our favourite GET REAL episodes of 2020.  The COVID-19 pandemic has made housing a hot-button issue for government. Since we recorded this episode, the Victorian government alone announced it is pumping $5.3 billion into building more than 12,000 social and affordable housing properties to boost Victoria’s housing supply.  Our guests on this e...

Send us Fan Mail Over summer, we’re revisiting some of our favourite GET REAL episodes of 2020.  People living with disabilities and mental health conditions are over-represented in the justice system, something we at ermha365 see in our work every day.  In this, one of our most popular episodes, we ask why this happens, and talk about how we amplified these issues by taking them to the Royal Comm...

Send us Fan Mail Over summer, we’re revisiting some of our favourite GET REAL episodes of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified public interest in how we deliver mental health services and support. PARCs are a short-term, residential mental health treatment services located in the community that provide an essential recovery-oriented service. ermha365 has been managing PARCs for almost 15 ye...

Send us Fan Mail Over summer, we’re revisiting some of our favourite GET REAL episodes of 2020. Caring for Carers was our first episode, recorded in early 2020, and is still one of our favourites. In this episode, we talk to Lynn and SJ, both carers with lived experience, about what it’s really like to support someone with a complex mental health issue or a disability, and how we can better care f...

Send us Fan Mail Ingrid Ozols battled mental illness and suicidal ideation. She has loved ones who have succeeded, and others who actively contemplate suicide.  Ingrid not only continues on her wellness and recovery journey, but thrives as a national and global speaker on suicide prevention.  Ingrid’s strength comes from willingness to share her vulnerability.   ermha365   provides mental health a...

Send us Fan Mail Not all disabilities are visible – in fact most aren’t!  People with invisible disabilities face all the same barriers as people with obvious disabilities, but compounded by the lack of obvious impairment.   Attitudinal barriers, in particular, are rife – with well-meaning members of the public interrogating people who don’t seem to have a disability (for example, are not in a whe...

Send us Fan Mail Discrimination, in all its forms, is unacceptable.  People who discriminate, and the structures and systems that allow this to happen, must be called out.  Discrimination causes people to lose their self-confidence, make them feel like outsiders – not part of the team; the anger that arises from being ‘othered’ can lead to depression and even suicidal thoughts.   In this fifth epi...

Send us Fan Mail Peer workers with lived experience provide an important complement to the psychosocial support teams delivering mental health services.  They improve the recovery orientation of mental health services, by offering genuine and authentic engagement with the people who use these services. This results in a reduction in hospital admissions and reduced load on other practitioners.  For...

Send us Fan Mail In the third conversation in our Lived Experience series, Karenza Louis-Smith talks to Graeme Alford: a lawyer, ex-prisoner, and author of the bestselling book Never Give Up – the power of mental toughness.  Growing up in Melbourne, Graeme had the world at his feet. He went to private school, won a Commonwealth Scholarship, excelled at Melbourne University and breezed his way into...

Send us Fan Mail Imagine for a minute that you’re a young boy in the late ‘60s growing up in country Victoria. Yours is a typical childhood in many ways, but you are a little too fond of getting into trouble. On your twelfth birthday, you are made a Ward of the State and find yourself in Turana Youth Training Centre, starting your apprenticeship for a career of crime, drug addiction, mental illnes...

Send us Fan Mail Over the next few weeks GET REAL speaks with remarkable men and women who have overcome incredible adversity, and are giving back to those in need of support through their recovery journey. This week, it’s James Harding and Steven Kline from Hard Cuddles , a peer support program which looks holistically at what it means to be a man in today’s society.  Through a combination of men...

Send us Fan Mail In February 2019, the Victorian Government established a Royal Commission on the Mental Health System in Victoria , the first of its kind in Australia. This is a “once in a generation opportunity” to accelerate improvements in mental health services, service navigation and models of care.   Nearly 18 months later, the Royal Commission has made interim recommendations and is due to...

Send us Fan Mail Having a roof over your head is pretty fundamental to meet basic needs in life. It’s also a fundamental human right. All of us need a stable, long term home so we can thrive, and be the best that we can be.   Unfortunately, inadequate and unsuitable housing is a really big barrier to thriving, for people with high and complex needs associated with mental health and disability. It...

Send us Fan Mail This week on GET REAL, we look at what makes support successful when working with people with high and complex needs associated with mental health and disability. At ermha365 , where we specialise in delivering this kind of support, we have seen that having a shared approach and a common language – used consistently across our organisation –  is the key to supporting people safely...

Send us Fan Mail In Part 2 of Celebrating PARCs, we take a deep-dive into the experiences of the people who work and stay at PARCs. If you missed Part 1 , PARCs are mental health Prevention and Recovery Care Centres. You’ll hear from Sean Kearns, Day Program Co-ordinator at Barwon Health Mental Health, who has been working at Barwon PARC for 17 years; Sharon, who recently experienced a stay at Bar...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever considered a career in mental health and disability? If not, here are some great reasons why you should. The sector is vibrant and growing, with the NDIS promising comprehensive choice and control for people with disabilities, and the mental health sector experiencing widespread community attention and renewed Government investment.  All this offers many exciting car...

Send us Fan Mail At ermha365, we reckon PARCs are pretty special places. But if you haven’t heard of them before, what is a PARC?  PARC stands for “Prevention And Recovery Care” services.  PARCs are short-term, residential mental health treatment services located in the community.   ermha365 has been managing PARCs for almost 15 years . As a psychosocial support services provider, we work hand-in-...

Send us Fan Mail People with complex mental health conditions, along with a range of physical, sensory, and cognitive disabilities, face additional challenges and hardships within the criminal justice system; a system that is difficult for any of us to negotiate.  So, when the Royal Commission on Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Discrimination against People with Disabilities released a Paper on Crimi...

Send us Fan Mail This week, GET REAL looks at the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – and how it impacts on the disability sector and our work today. Together, the United Nations Convention, plus Australian and State legislation and policies, create a robust regulatory framework to protect the human rights of people with disabilities. In addition, organisations t...

Send us Fan Mail This week, GET REAL asks a very practical question:  Where do you go to get help for your mental health – particularly if it is something you’ve struggled with even before COVID-19, or you have an underlying mental health condition, or the advice that’s available online, and to everyone, just doesn’t seem to make a difference for you? On this episode, guests include:  Karenza Loui...

Send us Fan Mail Now more than ever, people need support with their mental health, and services like ermha365 are finding new and innovative ways to continue to provide mental health support, while maintaining social distancing to help flatten the curve.   This week, GET REAL explores the way that ermha365’s mental health team has pivoted to telehealth services to continue to provide care and supp...

Send us Fan Mail How do we equip our workforce to support people who are living with psychosocial disabilities?  This is a particular challenge for some NDIS services like ermha365, who work with people who have been diagnosed with a significant mental disorder, have complex needs and challenging behaviours, and may also have extended histories of self-harm and violence.  This week, GET REAL explo...

Send us Fan Mail People with disabilities are highly vulnerable in the COVID-19 pandemic. Is our government doing enough to help them? What more do people with disabilities - and the organisations that support them - need to get them through this crisis safely?  GET REAL talks to the CEOs of three disability support organisations that have banded together with more than 30 others to lobby the gove...

Send us Fan Mail People who care for a friend of family member are the unsung heroes of our community. Carers provide a service that would otherwise fall on the health system, providing a $15bn contribution to the Victorian economy alone. Yet they often face enormous challenges. In this episode, we talk to three people with lived experience about what it’s really like to support someone with a com...