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The Hamilton Centre Podcast | Exploring Mental Health & Addiction is for service providers, individuals and family members dealing with co-occurring mental health and substance use conditions. In response to the recommendation of the Royal Commission into Victoria's Mental Health System (2021), the Centre was established to create a more inclusive and supportive system by promoting integrated care in Victoria, Australia.
Our podcast will feature interviews with service providers, individuals with lived experience, and workers who assist people with co-occurring conditions. We aim to promote holistic care throughout Victoria by breaking down barriers to treatment and through open minds and open doors.
This series features Gemma Turvey's composition, "Turquoise," performed by Gemma on piano, Craig Beard on vibraphone, and the talented musicians of the New Palm Court Orchestra.
Welcome to the Hamilton Centre Podcast, a space where we explore the thinking of leaders, service providers, workers, and people with lived and living experience, shaping the landscape of integrated care in mental health and addiction services in Victoria. I'm Annie Williams, Hamilton Centre Transformation Lead, and your host today. I'm thrilled to have a conversation with some of the brilliant minds behind our centre. We begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the lands on which this episode is recorded, Naarm, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, and we pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging, and acknowledge their unceded connection to land, sea and sky. We recognise people with lived experience of mental ill health, alcohol and other drug issues, and of recovery, and the experience of people who have been the carers, families or supporters of people with co-ccurring issues.
Annie:Joining us today are Sally and James from the Hamilton Centre service navigation team. Sally Thomas is a senior social worker at Turning Point working with multiple programs to support clients navigate and link into AOD services and provide linkages to other psychosocial supports. More recently, Sally has joined the Hamilton Centre navigation team to provide her expertise to this initiative. James is a senior psychiatric nurse with over 20 years experience in mental health work, both in the UK and Australia. He is also part of the AOD Pathways team and is now lending his expertise to the Hamilton Centre's service navigation team.
Annie:James has previously worked in community mental health and works in one of Melbourne's new psychedelic assisted psychotherapy clinics. Welcome, both of you. I'd like to start, if I may, with you telling us a little bit about your role with the Hamilton Centre Service Navigation team and how your experience is helping to shape this new initiative. Sally?
Sally:Thanks, Annie. It's really nice to be here. Now how can I, give you an idea of of where things began? I've been a social worker for 12, 13 years. I started in youth mental health, and then progressed over to, Turning Point.
Sally:And having the understanding of seeing the both systems not really able to to work together very well for the benefit of the client.
Annie:Which which systems are you referring to?
Sally:So I'm looking at mental health services as they have been, say, for the past 20 odd years, working with mental health concerns and then coming to Turning Point and seeing an understanding of substance use concerns and then thinking about all the past mental health clients that I had where this was never ever addressed or even considered, and then seeing sometimes vice versa and then having having an opportunity to be able to bring those 2 together and a bigger understanding of how substance use concerns and mental health concerns will 99 times out of a 100% together, and they do need to be supported together for the client to be able to benefit.
Annie:So this is our opportunity to bring in integrated care?
Sally:Yep. Yeah. Absolutely.
Annie:And James?
James:So, yeah, thanks for having me on the podcast. So, yeah, I work within the navigation team at Hamilton Centre. I suppose our sort of main role within the service is providing individualised support to clinicians across Victoria, and that's across both sectors, the AOD sector and the mental health sector. And I've got experience in both. So I started my career, in England, and most of that was adult inpatient units.
James:And I managed to land a role in the detox unit, which I loved, and working with a different type of clientele, I suppose. And, people who were made remarkable recoveries within sort of 7 to 10 days. So that really sort of piqued my interest in working in the AOD sector. I did some traveling, lived in Europe for a while, and then I came back to Australia and worked in community mental health teams. And I've done that for a number of years before moving across to Turning Point and then Hamilton Centre late last year.
James:And I see it's a really good opportunity for this sort of bridging the divide between both sectors. So it's it's an exciting space to be working in.
Annie:Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. The the remit for the Hamilton Centre to provide integrated care Yeah. For mental health and AOD clients.
Annie:As part of the navigation service, the advice and mentorship line's been established to, help support clinicians. How would a service like this fit into a clinician's already very busy working day?
Sally:I think that's exactly where it does fit in. Clinicians have a very busy working day.
Annie:Yeah.
Sally:And we can't be expected to have all the answers and all the solutions for all of our clients all the time.
Annie:Perfect.
Sally:Yeah. So we work, I think, with some fairly complex clients that, you know, if we're looking at clients who are experiencing mental health and substance use concern, there's going to be a layer of complexity there
Annie:Yeah.
Sally:Where we are going to need support as clinicians or advice from clinicians on some level at some time. And sometimes we can access that from one of our colleagues on the floor very close to us. And sometimes we need to think outside the box or perhaps step back and understand that there is a bigger picture out there. I think perhaps as clinicians, we might sometimes consider our world or our catchment based funding or our catchment based services to be all that there is.
Annie:Yeah.
Sally:Sometimes if we can take that one step back and see that there's a bigger pool of resources out there and a bigger pool of information out there that our clients can access and consider some of our statewide services, the Hamilton Centre Advisory Network, and a lot of other statewide services that can bust open the idea of catchments and give you a wider view of what's available to your client and what's available to you as a clinician. There's absolutely no reason why you can't look further afield for the information that you might need and then apply that to your local.
Annie:And would you agree with that James?
James:I do. And I like that idea of zooming out, you know, that we provide that sort of zoomed out role where sometimes you can get quite stuck working with clients, and that level of stuckness can lead to frustration. It can lead to sort of burnout and ideas that we actually can't help this client when if you sort of seek the supports elsewhere. I mean, I was lucky enough in a previous community mental health team that I worked in that we actually had a drug and alcohol team kind of embedded within our team, and they were based in the same office.
James:But most teams aren't lucky enough to have that. So I think that, you know, with a service like the Hamilton Centre coming on side, it can provide that sort of easy conduit between services and that sort of bridge, between the drug and alcohol and mental health sectors, which might not be there otherwise.
Annie:It's a nice way to think about it, the service being embedded in a clinician's, already busy day that they can just pick up the phone and chat to an expert.
James:And, I mean, clinicians are busy. Like, there's there's no doubt about that. I can speak firsthand about how much work pressures there is, you know, and you're dealing with life threatening situations sometimes.
James:You know? You happen to admit people to hospitals, you know, and you've got the added pressure of extra paperwork and reports to write. So but there's always downtime, you know, that even when there's chaos, there are those moments when you can sort of reflect on your caseload over the course of a week and just think, what are we really doing for this client? What are we doing with their care planning?
James:What are we doing about their recovery goals? Thinking about the sort of medium term to long term goals. And I think those are the sort of times that you could reach out to the Hamilton Centre. Those moments when you can say, actually, I do need a bit of support. I'm stuck with someone.
James:Maybe someone can help. You've got this sort of this this pool of, addiction specialists and clinicians who have got expertise in both sectors to actually support people.
Annie:There's a lot being talked about, the importance of a therapeutic alliance with clients. But could you, first of all, explain the meaning of a therapeutic alliance, but then tell us why it's just as important for the clinician, as well as the client?
James:So, yeah, therapeutic alliance is a term used in psychology and psychotherapy about it's it's essentially just, working on built rapport. So it's it's sort of where people always talk about building rapport with clients. I'd say a therapeutic alliance is when that rapport has been solidly established. And it's this sort of working model where it's this sort of cocreation of ideas between client and clinician, and there's a sort of deep level of sort of felt trust between them both that they're working towards similar goals.
Annie:So a well supported clinician would be in a good place to build a therapeutic alliance?
James:Absolutely. Yeah.
Annie:And Sally, your thoughts on that?
Sally:I think we can extend the idea of therapeutic alliance or a network alliance, say between clinician and clinician. So if we have that rapport across the network of our colleagues and not just thinking of our colleagues, say, sitting around our table and sitting within our programs, but thinking about the expertise and the knowledge that you can tap into within your whole service, and then once you can, see the benefit of that, then perhaps you can see the benefit of looking outside towards a network and a statewide opportunity to be able to access specific and, specialist knowledge in an area where you might really benefit from some support.
Annie:It's just knowing where to ask for that advice.
Sally:Yeah. And it can just come on so many levels. It doesn't have to be this, you might just be able to pick up the phone, call the Hamilton Centre navigation team, and leave a voice message.
Sally:And then or leave a time where you will most likely have a better opportunity, be able to receive a a callback. or something like that. It could be just a 5 minute conversation about this is where I'm stuck, and then perhaps that, relationship building can go from there. And then maybe next time, you'd make find it easier to call next time or ask another colleague or reach out to another network. So it's not just about using Hamilton Centre Central.
Sally:It's about using all networks.
James:I like that idea of the different services being aligned so that everyone's aligned. And with that, you know, you have the client's goals and their voice very central to everything. And if they're aligned with at least one key clinician, then everyone's kind of aligned on the everyone's on the same page towards their recovery goals and their care planning, and that's where things start happening. And and then you see progress. You know?
James:The the try the client has, an inherent trust in the system because they've got a key clinician that they're working well with, And that key clinician then has a good idea about where they're going in terms of the sort of client goals, and they can reach out to support externally. Then they'll let that will allow them more time because there's less chaos in the client's life, because they're more stable, they're settled, they've got a good understanding of where they're heading, then they can reach out to those support services that can provide expertise and expert advice that may they may not know about otherwise.
Annie:And I can imagine that that then leads to a lot more job satisfaction for the clinician by able because they're able to support their client in a more in a thorough way rather than
Sally:It's very hard if you're trying to support a client who's experiencing complex, mental health concerns or some complex substance use concerns, and then let's not throw in the whole mix of other social issues that that could be providing multiple barriers to them accessing the appropriate supports.
Annie:So you're talking about unstable housing and
Sally:Yeah. All those issues. Legal going on or what have you. And if you don't know how to support that or who to ask for advice, you are a lot less likely to even try and open up that conversation with your client because it can feel like, oh, if I ask that question, I have no idea where to go to with that.
Sally:So why would I even go there? But if you knew that there was a knowledge bank somewhere or something someone you could ask about how to access support for those services, you're much more likely to feel like you can support that client and get better outcomes for them.
James:A 100%. Yeah. And I think as well that some of the barriers sometimes come from the very services that look to support clients, unfortunately. You know, on the one end of the spectrum, you've got the AOD sector where I think under the proviso that, you know, that it's all very client-centred and, you know, you can't ever mandate treatment, which is fair. But then there's sometimes very minimal engagement sort of enacted on part of the AOD sector.
James:They might make one phone call to a client, leave a voice mail. If they don't get back to them, then they close the case. And at the opposite end of the spectrum, you have the mental health sector, which for, unfortunately, for decades has actually left the client's voice out from from the decision making. And often, treatment is enforced using the mental health act, and I'm glad that's changing now. You've got the new mental health act come in.
James:But, you know, the 2 they're very different ways in working. What we're really hopeful to do with the Hamilton Centre is to provide that middle ground that, you know, people are supported in making contact with services. You know, we're not just leaving it up to them that we're actually walking beside them in their support, but we're definitely not enforcing treatment either. You know, it's very much client-centred work, trauma informed care, and, you know, support for clinicians in that process as well.
Annie:And just, taking your point about support for clinicians, do you think there's a stigma, sort of, for one of a better word, in the industry about asking for help, particularly outside your own, close network?
James:Yeah. I do think so. I think, people have a tendency not to wanna reach out beyond their line managers or their peers are working around them. But, hopefully, be able to provide this sort of very approachable, service. You know, you're only a few clicks away or a quick phone call away from what I'd like to think is quite a friendly service.
James:You know, we'll offer, you know, sort of informal on the spot sort of advice if they want it or recommendations, and we'll help guide people through to, making referrals for primary or secondary consultations, just explaining about the service, really, the Hamilton Centre provides, and just sort of, just providing that sort of friendly air for a clinician as well and just sort of a bit of mentorship if they're seeking that. And I suppose when it works is when a clinician phones up and we're giving recommendations and sort of bouncing ideas with the clinician as well and seeing what works. And when they stop calling us, you know, they don't need our help anymore, then we've done a good service.
Annie:Yeah. Can you just elaborate a little bit on the the primary and secondary consult. What what would you offer in a secondary consult to a clinician?
James:Yeah. So we can actually forward to the clinical networks for formal primary, and secondary consults. But a secondary consult with us would just be sort of guiding the clinician and providing advice sort of on the spot over the phone when they call in. And it might be, you know, an example would be, I had someone from a hepatology liver clinic the other day. They phoned up, and they were sort of struggling to engage with their clients or but were their patients who referred to them?
James:You know, they often found that they were sort of giving them phone numbers, and they would leave, but then they would never call. And then they came back to the liver clinic again, and she would ask, you know, did you ever call that that drug and alcohol number? And they would say no. So she was struggling with sort of engagement with clients. So then we can just engage the clinician and say, look.
James:Maybe motivational interviewing courses can help. We could guide them to the Hamilton Centre resources pages, get them to join the newsletter, talking about different ways you can engage clients, like drink diaries and such like. So we can just really provide that sort of on the spot support for people who may not have done AOD training formally.
Annie:And just thinking about, the advice and mentorship line. Is it a one off phone call, or are you available for ongoing discussion about particularly, challenging situations for the, clinicians?
James:Yeah. We're definitely available ongoing if needed, but we can be one off as well. It's very much dependent on the clinician or client reaching out.
Sally:I think the advice mentorship line, whichever way you wanna label it, as an opportunity to reach out and increase your knowledge or confidence in working in a particular substance use area or how to work with a client who's experiencing mental health and substance use concerns. It can be whatever you want it to be. It can be a one off phone call for 5 minutes, it might be a series of phone calls over over a short period of time to support a small, brief piece of
Sally:work with a client. If you've got a long term client that may present, at at one point and you need to be able to, say, navigate a very fragmented and confusing AOD system out there, we can absolutely help with that.
Sally:And then perhaps, as your client requires different services over time, you might need to step in and step out of asking for a little bit of advice or support in how to navigate or support your client as their circumstances change.
Annie:And I guess the authenticity comes from the fact that you've also been in that position, so you understand the clinician's needs for advice that's perhaps around services that are completely outside their, experience and, their knowledge base.
James:Yeah. I think, you know, some as I said earlier, there there are some clinics that have the opportunity to sort of liaise and just go up and pop into a different office and ask for advice. But often, you know, especially with regional services, they don't have that, luxury.
Annie:Mhmm.
James:And it's just that the Hamilton Centre can provide that external sort of service, that sort of support line for clinicians. Speaking from working in area mental health and wellbeing services, you know, the client may be allocated a mental health nurse as their key clinician or an allied health staff member as their key clinician. They will usually be allocated a, consultant psychiatrist or a psych registrar or a medical officer as well. They might be lucky enough to have a a psychologist involved with them. Other than that, the unless those clinicians have a keen interest in the AOD sector, have done significant amount of training in the space
James:You know, they're not necessarily gonna have the sort of skill set to help manage their drug and alcohol use.
Annie:So that would just perpetuate that siloed approach?
James:Exactly. And then that, you know, this and the concern as well would be that, potentially, the client doesn't feel able to reach out to them, you know, that they feel that they, you know, there is some stigma attached with AOD use. You know, they're concerned that it might, you know, because there is that intersectionality between it affecting their their mental health condition.
Annie:So one of the Hamilton Centre's goals is to break down that siloed or help break down that siloed approach by making access to care and education equitable for all. Do you have, we've already spoken a little bit about some of the barriers for clinicians. What else would preclude clinicians from accessing information and support? Are there other challenges?
Sally:I wonder if the idea that if we have all been working within our own programs and working to our own funding stream, we do have a tendency to silo ourselves. So not only, I would say every clinician out there would be very, very happy to have more information on board on how to support clients with mental health and substance use concerns. But perhaps the, there's a wider system out there that might be working against our individual desire to support our clients on both fronts. So if, we can find a way, to understand that sometimes we have to do something that is not necessarily straight down the path to support our client. We need to be able to understand that with communication and with that building of connection, you are going to have much better, much more positive outcomes for your for your clients by holding on to your networks, by building your networks.
Sally:That is that is the key to breaking down the silos.
Annie:Yeah. So some of those barriers can be self imposed without even really being aware of it.
James:Hamilton Centre's got a lot a lot of work to do.
Sally:I think we've all got a lot of work to do.
Sally:I think we all come in, and, perhaps the way professions, within the AOD sector and within the mental health sector have changed, and we've become more professionalised, and we've become more credentialed as we've gone along. Mhmm. That sometimes can silo clinicians into thinking that they can only do one part of the work. Yeah. Yes.
Sally:Whereas, back in the day, inverted commas, you'd be thrown into one one programme, and then you'd have an opportunity to get some experience in another programme, and perhaps those opportunities don't exist anymore or as much anymore. So when you get that opportunity, and when someone says, hey. Do you want some do you want some experience in in, in an AOD clinic or what have you say? Yes. Thanks.
Sally:That'd be great. If you want some help do you want some support, you know, getting some getting some expertise in a in a mental health program? Yes. Thanks. I would absolutely love that.
Sally:To all the younger clinicians out there, the newer clinicians out there, put your hand up, and if someone offers you something like that, grab it with both hands. Absolutely.
Annie:And look for those opportunities as well.
James:Yep. Yeah.
Annie:I'd be really interested to know about some of the calls that you've already received and, to the advice and mentorship line. Are you happy to share?
James:Yeah. Sure. Stories? I had one, phone call that, came a little while ago for someone who was working on a rehab unit. And she had someone who had started to develop psychotic symptoms, and it was it was causing problem for the other patients on the ward.
James:She was keeping people awake at night. So this clinician phoned up and reached out to the Hamilton Centre, and I was able to provide sort of on the spot advice, you know, asking about sort of organic screens and workups and medication recommendations and such. And then just do some follow-up emails as well and, you know, advised actually that they contact, the Hilton Center, clinical network for a primary and secondary consult. It's a fairly easy process for clinicians, for for people who are eligible for the service. You know, and we would just sort of guide them through that referral process.
James:Mhmm. And it's a pretty quick turnaround as well. Mhmm. I believe it's around 3 to 5 days before getting a a callback to organise that actual consultation.
Annie:Correct.
James:And then you've got a team of addiction specialists who are able to provide that sort of really robust and thorough assessment of someone's mental health and AOD needs. And it's, and then the recommendations from that that assessment go back to the referring clinician. So it's I think it's a really good service. And when people call up and ask about it, we are we often have quite, good feedback from those clinicians, and and this one was a a case of that. She was she felt very supported, and her client actually got better and was able to see out their rehab and was able to reengage with groups again.
James:So it was a successful outcome.
Annie:And, Sally, have you got any examples that you'd be happy to share?
Sally:Yeah. I have one, phone call perhaps that that comes to mind, with a clinician who was supporting, quite a a vulnerable client, who was a single mum, experiencing some fairly, fairly difficult, like, social concerns going on at the time, and she was starting to starting to experience the the deterioration of mental health, and she was as a as the she had a very strong self awareness of what was going on. And her mental health clinician was, you know, doing everything that that she could to support that. And then she realized that perhaps, you know, there might be a a possible relapse in substance
Sally:use.
Sally:And as a single mother of a young child, she was very concerned, how is this going to work with, you know, are we going to end up making a report for this for safety reasons? And I think being able to offer that clinician some substance use advice to be able to support her client who she had the report with to prevent a a relapse for this for this client and then be able to support her through this to not only bolster, her confidence as a as a mental health clinician, to be able to support her client in that generalised way, to be able to talk about, okay. Well, you know, we've done a lot of work with regards to your what you feel might be deteriorating mental health symptoms at the moment. Now let's have a look at this in conjunction with what, you know, possible substance use concerns you might be might be presenting at the moment and and completely, being able to negate any need for, any other services to to get involved because we were able to keep everybody safe and supported.
Annie:Yeah. So a great example of capacity building for that clinician, but also encouraging such transparent discussion with the client as well to not be afraid of talking about the substance use.
Sally:Yeah. It really breaks down the the stigma. And if you are on if you are feeling that vulnerable as as a client and you are not particularly likely to be forthcoming with that kind of information,
Annie:it might
Sally:really, really disrupt your your family circumstances, to as as James has talked about earlier, to be able to build that therapeutic alliance where people will absolutely, be able to trust that you are going to be able to support them properly, and support them better towards their goals, I think we can only benefit from from a network.
Annie:Of course. Yeah. And that brings us back to that very valid point around trauma informed care as well. Yeah. Some of the, other resources available from the Hamilton Centre are, online modules, and as James already said, a newsletter.
Annie:Are these things that you point clinicians in the direction of during your discussions?
James:Yeah. It very much depend on case by case and whether we think that would be appropriate advice for the clinician, but I've definitely point them in the direction of the Hamilton Center website. There's a number of great resources there, and easily, you know, they're just sort of single clicks, and then you've got a good resource on AOD supports and and mental health intersection. And we've also got we'll often make other recommendations about sort of service that operate within the same site that we work from. So, AOD Pathways, for example, that's a service that can support clients who have struggled to sort of navigate their way through the drug and alcohol sector.
James:So this might be for people who are ineligible for the Hamilton Centre as well Yeah. Because they don't they're not necessarily linked in with that mental health sector. And we can then support them to just make a referral to AD pathways. I suppose I'm gonna let Sal speak about AD pathways because it's been her baby.
Annie:Mhmm.
James:She's created it from the start, but it's a it's a really good service, and and people have felt quite supported by being able to access the AD pathways if they're not currently eligible for their Hamilton Centre.
Annie:Yeah. I'm really glad that you brought that up, James, because, sometimes the Hamilton Centre is not suitable, for all scenarios. So I'd love, Sally, if you would just share a little bit about the pathway service.
Sally:Well, the AOD pathway service is another one of those, statewide services that clinicians and clients and family members and concerned others are all welcome to to call in and seek some support if you are we do client direct client work. So without having to do that secondary consult level, I guess, if you have a client who needs some support directly that isn't eligible for the Hamilton Centre, they can seek support through AOD pathways. You, as a clinician, can also seek support through AOD pathways, and we can provide that shorter, secondary consult or advisory support or navigation support service as well. It's been very helpful in supporting family members and concerned others and helping those people who are affected by, substance use as well. It's not only the person of concern, and I think we've always known that.
Sally:It's not only the person who's using the substances that gets affected by this. It's whole families. It's whole communities that can be affected, and, the whole family and the whole community needs support.
James:Mhmm.
Sally:And sometimes it's more difficult to try and navigate that and access that. So that's what we're here for.
James:And often the clinicians supporting them are the ones feeling responsible for that that sort of holding down that that sort of preventing, mitigating risks associated with their substance use. So then, you know, it's it's it's it feels like a good sort of support system that we're offering at Hamilton Center because we can kind of concurrently run a referral through the Hamilton for primary and secondary consults. We can support the clinician. We can then also refer their client that's supporting 2 AOD pathways at the same time. We can do follow-up emails.
James:You know? It feels like a quite a robust system
Annie:for holistic
James:approach. Exactly.
Annie:And particularly because you can, offer AOD pathways to families and other support people.
James:Yeah.
Sally:And it's also going to work on that assertive linkage basis with with a therapeutic overlay. So, we're not just gonna provide people with a referral number and and send them off.
Annie:No. No. No. It's proactive follow-up. There's
Sally:a lot of this.
James:There's a lot of this. There's a lot of this.
Sally:There's proactive follow-up. And that that opportunity to do that follow-up with the service that we might be referring to, ensure people have been able to make that linkage. If they haven't, then we can workshop ways in in how to make it more more possible or more viable of just trying to work out what it is that's getting in the way of them being able to link in with that service.
James:Mhmm. To all caps door policy as well. So, you know, there's open door policy for clients at AOD Pathways and open door for Hamilton Center as well. You know, clinicians and clients can always come back and reach out to us whenever they want, sort of close off referrals and make it difficult for them to reconnect with us. It's just 2 one eight hundred numbers, just call in and see how we can help.
Annie:Do you have any additional insights that you'd like to share with the, the podcast audience?
James:Yeah. I suppose speaking about the therapeutic alliance, you know, I've I've I'm fairly strongly opinionated that I think it's important that we need to take a nonpathologizing stance with our clients. You know, we need to
Annie:What what do you mean by that?
James:So to not see people as a a diagnosis or a series of symptoms, that we actually see them as individuals, And we're sort of stepping one away from this historically overmedicalized model of psychiatry that we're actually moving away from that. You know, we're we're not surgeons. We're not mechanics. We don't need to fix people. We just need to listen to them.
James:And I think we do that at both the Hamilton Center and AOD Pathways, and I see that service just continuing. And, hopefully, we'll just get, more ability to do that for for wider scope of people reaching out for for those kind of supports. And I just think it's the the I suppose the main thing is that client sort of choice is central to decision making, and and clinician advocacy is paramount as well.
Annie:So almost changing the dynamic to make the client the centre
James:Exactly. And
Annie:of the directed care.
James:Yeah.
Sally:Yeah. I think that's, that's a very big point that James makes there. This needs to be led by the client, and and and what what services do they see that they need? Can we look at this as from a systems point of view, as making sure that we really do provide appropriate and relevant services where those services need to be? Offering the flexibility to ensure that clients can get to those services.
Sally:So just because those services are there doesn't mean it's miraculously gonna be easy for them to get there. We do need to still provide that support. We need to be flexible as clinicians, and we need to have more flexible systems to ensure that We can't put our clinicians into these rigid roles of
James:you
Sally:can do this and you can only do this. Mhmm. We need to have creativity
James:in
Sally:our work and creativity in our thinking to ensure that clients who are not necessarily, straightforward can can get into services. You know?
Annie:So you heard it here, permission to be creative. I'd really like to thank both of you for such an authentic and informative discussion this morning. I think that there's a lot of take home messages here, and I'm sure that this podcast will be a very popular one. Thank you.
James:Thank you, Annie.
Annie:Thank you for joining us on the Hamilton Centre podcast, where we explore the thinking of leaders, service providers, workers, and people with lived and living experience shaping the landscape of integrated care in mental health and addiction services across Victoria. I'm Annie Williams, your host today, and we can't wait to share these insights with you. Please visit our website, www.hamiltoncentre.org.au, and subscribe to our newsletter for a journey into transformative mental health and addiction care.