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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 experience, shaping the landscape of integrated care and mental health and addiction services in Victoria. I'm your host and the clinical director of the Hamilton Centre, Shalini Arunogiri. And today I'm thrilled to have a conversation with some of the brilliant minds behind our centre. We begin today by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the lands on which this episode is recorded, Naarm, and the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, and we pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging. We acknowledge people with lived experience of mental health, alcohol and other drug issues, and of recovery, and the experience of people who've been carers, families, or supporters of people with co occurring issues.
Shalini:To kick us off for our first podcast, Dan Lubman, addiction psychiatrist and executive clinical director of Turning Point, is joining us today. Dan, could you kick us off by sharing a little bit about yourself, your background, and what your role has been in supporting the creation of the Hamilton Centre?
Dan:Yeah. Well, thanks, Shalini, and, welcome to everyone. I'm really excited to be on the podcast today. So my role, essentially, has been really driving the agenda around how we improve capability in in the addiction field and how we, help, people across addiction and mental health space build their skill sets and understanding of addiction and how we create services and, supports that better meet the needs of people who are struggling with alcohol drug, issues. And I think the Hamilton Center, you know, is a really exciting, developments and initiative.
Dan:We're super excited around the opportunity that came out of the Royal Commission. Certainly, Royal Commission identified many things that, I think we can all agree, there's an opportunity to improve and and and to to build. And the Hamilton Centre provides a really unique opportunity to sort of take a step back, look at the the the challenges of delivering integrated care and to to work with services and with clinicians to to sort of develop what are the best responses to sort of make people feel skilled and deliver the best quality care we can.
Shalini:Yeah. That's that's been a fantastic opportunity. And I guess, so you mentioned sort of taking a step back. Could you tell us a little bit about your reflections on that that need for integrated care, particularly, I guess, some of your reflections from working overseas and and coming to earlier.
Dan:Yeah. I mean, I think for me, I'm just stepping back into sort of why I got involved in the mental health field at all, is that, obviously, I've I've always been, you know, interested in sort of, human behavior and how we think and and the brain and and how and sort of, how that impacts on our behavior and and our well-being. And I think working in the mental health space, we we don't have that many sort of, I suppose, disorders now in in in the mental health. We have depression, we have anxiety, we have psychosis, or we have a range of personality disorders, eating disorders. But, what's really exciting about working in this field is is that when we see people people, it's not about disorder.
Dan:It's about understanding what what were you know, where people are at. It's about understanding how the different things that have happened in their life or current things that are happening in their life, how that shapes that person experience. So in terms of treating people and dealing with those disorders, it's around understanding what is the influence of biological factors, psychological factors, social factors, cultural factors. And, obviously, substance use is something that's incredibly common in in both in the community, but, obviously, in the mental health space. We know there's a huge overlap between mental health and substance use.
Dan:We know that many people that we see are using substances to sort of deal with sort of really unpleasant, distressing feelings and emotions. And so it's a core part of what we see. And, for us to be able to think about what the best approach is to support somebody to get where they wanna be in life, You know, we have to take that into account and think about the role that that plays in how we support the person to manage their substance use and have alternative strategies to to deal with whatever is distressing them. And so that's always been a driver for me and, and something that's been excited about working in this field.
Shalini:Yep. And I guess what I'm hearing as well is, I guess, from a clinician's perspective, it sounds like, you know, regardless of where you work, really, whether you work in mental health settings or, alcohol and drug settings. And we see a whole person often, you know, that substance use is part of that picture alongside mental health symptoms. I guess, it'd be really great to hear a bit about your, you know, consultation with the Royal Commissioners as well around this, because I think, from our reflections, during that process of the Royal Commission actually being conducted, what the commissioners were hearing time and time again was really, from individuals and families around what their experiences were of a system, and a system where they perhaps weren't felt like they were seeing, the whole person that they were being told to go somewhere else for their problems?
Dan:Yeah. No. Absolutely. I mean, I I think it's I mean, for all of us, you know, I I think, you know, we've we're working in this space to help people, and and, obviously, the systems we work in in some ways are directing us what we can and can't do. And, and that can be really frustrating as a clinician when we see somebody, we see their need.
Dan:And as you say, clinician. When we see somebody, we see their need. And as you say, we see that, there's a range of issues that are impacting on their mental health, be that substance use, be that housing, being that, family issues or unemployment. And and, you know, if we wanna provide good mental health care, we need to think about how we address all these issues that are driving that behavior. And in terms of my own experience, I trained in the UK as an addiction psychiatrist.
Dan:And, I think for me, just in terms of talking about the system, coming out to Australia, having trained and worked in the addiction field, I came to Australia out in 99, so 25 years ago, and I think what was really surprising was that I couldn't get a job in the addiction field. There wasn't any medical positions funded in the state in the addiction field at that time and so I had to go back working in mental health where mental health said we don't see people with alcohol issues. Now that is a separate system. So, you know, some of the frustrations here is around how we've constructed systems, how we've said what can or can't be seen, And that's a real challenge for clinicians in trying to just do the best for people when our systems are putting impediments in our way to provide the best quality care. And I think, you know, that's cascaded down to sort of families and individuals not understanding why is it that we're if we wanna treat mental health, we're not treating the whole person.
Dan:Frustrations around trying to navigate the system, which is often fragmented. And not unsurprisingly, that's a whole sort of advocacy, and and hearing those voices which sort of culminated in the Royal Commission and basically saying that, what's currently happening isn't good enough, and we need to do better. And I think that's the opportunity for us moving forward and an opportunity to to work with services and clinicians to work out, you know, how do we construct a system that actually helps people and helps people working in the system to do provide the care they wanna provide.
Shalini:That's a really important point because I think, you know, we tend to focus perhaps on what's happening in front of us, but I think at systems level, what we're hearing is, you know, not just the Hamilton Center integrated care kind of implementation. There's a whole range of other things that are happening at a system level that are that are changing the system we work in. I guess one part of that system is also thinking about the role of specialist addiction services within that stream. And I think for us, at that one, that's something that's really exciting for us to be part of building a new sort of specialist addiction stream within that interfaces with mental health and with AOD. You know, for me, myself, like, hearing your comments on being, you know, coming here and not finding any medical positions, I suppose, as being the the first addiction trainee registrar and in psychiatry in this state.
Shalini:You know, similar reflections in the fact that, you know, the system change has happened really quite quickly, in some respects in Victoria and being able to kinda create some some systems in terms of addiction specialist sectors. So I guess from your reflections, what role could a addiction specialist sector play within the context of of the sort of Hamilton Centre initiatives, the network that we're building? What role can we play in terms of being able to support clinicians on the ground, both in, alcohol and drug settings and in mental health settings, do you think?
Dan:I mean, I I think that's a great question. And I suppose I've been involved in trying, you know, looking at different ways to improve, people's capability to address both mental health and alcohol and drug issues across both sectors for for a long time now. And and I think the the constant thing that, comes up in any sort of initiative we have is that, you know, people, you know, want to do you know, wanna be skilled and wanna know what to do, but they're very reluctant to do that. If they ask a question, something comes up, and and the response they get is that that there's no one to turn to for advice or support. So Novi, you know, in in this space, you know, what we find is people don't ask around substance use or don't ask about issues if they feel they're gonna get an answer that they don't know what to do with, or the answer is is too complex for them to deal with in that service.
Dan:What happens then? They're asking a question of something that they're not sure what to deal with. And that's why, across the health system, you know, we we have a whole system around a range of specialties across a whole range of different health disorders that if you're asking questions, whether it be the treatment of diabetes, the treatment of heart disease, treatments of depression, that, you know, we we, you know, we train people to be able to manage people and support people at at a simple or moderate level. But as that complexity rises, there's an opportunity to refer on for specialist advice and support, and that gives people confidence, allows people to develop their skills, and it makes people reassured that if they do wanna provide support in this space, they're they're gonna get support for themselves as well. And that's why it's really exciting to see the building of a of a specialist system in Victoria, something that we haven't had, for a very long time.
Dan:And so having that that building that specialist system as part of the Hamilton Centre is, you know, such an exciting initiative and and sort of, you know, will give a lot of comfort and reassurance to consumers working in the sector that there are, you know, specialists working in the sector that are here to support you, they're here to help you, upskill, to to to help you deal with, you know, some of the common challenges you have. And I I think it's something we're very excited about here at Hamilton Centre.
Shalini:Absolutely. Because I think, well, this is the first podcast in our series, and the subsequent podcast, we'll be hearing a little bit more about our network across the state, which includes a whole range of addiction specialists that will be able to help with sort of secondary consultation, primary consultation. I think what we're also hearing is that, you know, part of that's around providing clinical service delivery, but it's also that capacity building element, that capacity to be able to build that relationship with your network service provider, to be able to feel comfortable to pick up the phone and ring them when you're not sure, kind of, what to do or what's the right question to ask with your client. And we also have a telephone service navigation line that, is available across the state so that people can have those conversations and feel confident and comfortable. I guess, you know, Dan, it'd be great to hear your reflections on on that capacity building element, in the context of integrated care because we've had a number of training initiatives, for some time now.
Shalini:It'd be great to hear, you know, the role that that plays in being able to upskill people in integrated care and also think about how that relates perhaps to to the broader system and the other initiatives that that need to be taken into account.
Dan:Yeah. No. Absolutely. I mean, I think it just in terms of reflections, you know, when I did come to Australia here, one of the first jobs I got as a registrar was in a newly, developed, Victorian dual diagnosis initiative. So I was working at Summit, sort of this is in sort of late nineties, and it was a really exciting time.
Dan:There was a huge investment in sort of upskilling the workforce. And and the one of the first things I got told in that job was that, actually, this this whole initiative wouldn't exist in about 5 years because we would have uplifted the whole
Shalini:So around 1995, we would cease to exist as planned. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Dan:Yeah. Only 2000. You know, essentially, for you know, by up skilling, you know, I I think, you know, what the reflection was people were hungry to learn more. People clinicians wanna be upskilled. They wanna know how to support their, the people they're working with.
Dan:So, you know, people are hungry for that. And I think, you know, the the initiative was really great in terms of training lots of people. But, obviously, 25 years down the track, you know, the system hasn't changed, you know, and it's not about the willingness of clinicians working in the system to sort of upscale, you know, to to to be able to offer, a range of different things to the the people that they're working with. You know, I think what what the Royal Commission has shown is is it there's actually system impediments to actually for clinicians to actually do the work that they need to do. And so what we're really excited about here in terms of the Hamill Centre is is is exactly the things that you've talked about in terms of providing on the ground, you know, tangible support to clinicians on the ground in terms of opportunities to upskill in terms of range of different training options, offering primary and secondary consultation in terms of, providing advice and support around the the actual, people that you are supporting.
Dan:But the other part of that is is our role in terms of sort of working at the system level. So working with clinical directors of services, of mental health services, of alcohol and drug services, you know, being able to liaise with the department. So, you know, part of the work we have to do is understanding the the complexity of the environment in which we work and understanding what are the facilities and barriers to integrated care. And if we wanna deliver integrated care, if we really want that to work and we don't wanna be here 25 years years later, you interviewing me again asking me, what are your reflections? What's changed?
Dan:It can't be that we just we stop at just up upskilling workforce. It's gotta be we've gotta look at that that broader system sort of impediments. What are the drivers? What are the levers? What what are the ways in which we're sort of supporting services and systems to actually make sure that you've created care as core business?
Dan:And I and I think that's the challenge for us to have. Yep. And also the opportunity for us to make a difference.
Shalini:Absolutely. I think, that's where I suppose with the Hamilton Centre, what you'll hear from our network partners is really that capacity to develop insights on the ground about how, services are functioning, particularly in this time where there's a lot of change. Lots of new services are being onboarded. So I think from that on the ground perspective of those insights on how people are navigating the systems, where those blockages are, where those gaps are, There's an opportunity to to lift that up and escalate it and that opportunity to also hear about how the system is or isn't working. But I think for us, the Hamilton, it's also acknowledging the fact that that is, you know, acknowledged as a wicked problem.
Shalini:It's a complex problem. And trying to understand, as you say, what that broader picture looks like and to learn from our partners, both, you know, nationally and internationally around what that looks like too. One of the functions that the Hamilton Center has is is also around research in this space. And we're looking forward to being able to kind of understand that a little bit further as well. Being understanding how we, look at implementation, for instance, within the context of integrated care, both across Victoria and and, nationally too.
Shalini:I guess, you know, in terms of, you know, thinking about what our next steps are at the Hamilton Centre, this is still relatively early days for us. It's about 1 year into, our operations at the moment, and we've got some great, successes that have happened already. To date, we passed our 500 referral milestone a couple of weeks ago. And that's really great to hear that services are starting to hear about us. I think introducing a new, initiative into a system such as this is is challenging, and it's great that people are starting to hear and starting to make those referrals.
Shalini:From your perspective, I guess, with the Hamilton Centre being at this stage, you know, coming out of that early establishment period, particularly thinking about some of our listeners who, clinicians potentially working on the ground in AOD or mental health services. What do you think would be some of the things that the Hamilton Centre can can offer to them in the space in the in the coming year, do you think?
Dan:I mean, I think as you say, there's been, you know, you know, huge successes in terms of, what we've been able to achieve given, you know, that the Royal Commission is in full swing. There's a lot of different initiatives happening on the ground. There's a whole shift, new mental health act, whole range of different services being, you know, set up and establish a whole different way of thinking about stuff. So, you know, there's a lot of, you know, we're setting we're setting the Hamilton Centre up, I suppose, not on a very stable base. There's a lot of moving parts.
Dan:And so, you know, getting that airtime, sort of hearing, you know, been very grateful. You know, we've done a number of consultations across this year, looking at training needs, looking at what integrated care looks like, what some of their facilities and barriers are. So people have been very generous with their time in terms of really letting us know around what some of the challenges they have are. I think for us, you know, you know, some of the things that I'm really excited about is is that opportunity to sort of, really provide opportunities to upskill. So I really look at what the educational needs are and and provide sort of modules and training and a range of different types of training, but clinicians do upskill, and and get the support they need to sort of, feel confident to work in this space.
Dan:I think that's really exciting. I think there's opportunities, you know, in terms of the the development of the the network and how we've built that, onboarded, and recruited, fully to that to those teams. So we've done a lot of work in establishing those teams, working out what's working, what's not working, expanding that to now to locals and to, and to, alcohol and drug services, really expanding the pools of referrals and the opportunities for people to connect. So I think they're they're the key priorities at the moment around that upskilling and in terms of providing, you know, good clinical support for, people across the state. And then I think there's the opportunities for us to really think about that system level challenges and to think about what are some of the broader initiatives that, you know, we've a number of things we're thinking about at the moment.
Dan:We've heard about some of the opportunities already developed those up, and I'm really excited about what the opportunities might be in terms of addressing, issues in that space. You know? And then stigma, obviously, is something that we've heard loud and clear as as a major barrier, particularly for people on the ground, and and for many, you know, certainly from people with lived experience. And and and so that is something we're thinking very hard about around what is it, what are the opportunities in that space to address that? Because, you know, stigma is something that has is a major impediment to really implementing this sort of at scale.
Shalini:Absolutely. And I think, that's something you'll hear us talk a bit more about and then subsequent podcast really around, both the capacity building initiatives for the ability to bring some of those research, projects that we'll be developing, including, that piece around stigma and trying to really understand, I suppose, for us, bringing that to a Victorian context, bringing that to also rural and regional context. So you really understand kind of capacity for the setting to really influence what that looks like on the ground. So we're looking forward to being able to share that, in the coming months. But I think what I heard you also talk about is really those expansions that we're looking forward to being able to do.
Shalini:That 1st year of service delivery for us, the health concern has been largely, with Area Mental Health and Well-being Services. So we're really excited to be able to pull that out into the locals and into drug and alcohol services. So I think for our AOD services, this has been a little while coming and really looking forward to being able to kind of build those relationships on a local level and start opening our doors very shortly, to AOD clients, across the state. So the next, little bit of the podcast is gonna be talking about our networks, and I'll be joined soon by, Lisa, who's our implementation lead around that. I think, did you have any last messages for us, in relation to the center on this podcast?
Dan:No. I just want to say a big congratulations to the team and everyone who's been involved across the networks in setting up the initiative. It's, it's really exciting to set these things up and there's a lot of really, great people and passionate people involved in in making this work. And I'm just really excited about, where this is gonna go, and I'm really excited about all the goodwill and support that we've had across the sector because people have really been clearly articulating that this is an area that we need to address, and and they're really looking forward to the opportunities that Appendocenter can provide.
Shalini:Thanks so much for joining us today, Dan. Thanks for
Dan:your time. Oh, thanks for having us. It was a pleasure to be here.
Shalini:In the second part of today's episode, Lisa Jarvie, our clinical quality improvement lead, joins us for a conversation about the value of working with people with lived experience, and the excitement around the work at the Hamilton Centre, and a sneak peek into our future. Thanks for joining us, Lisa.
Lisa:Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Shalini:So, Lisa, do you wanna tell us a little bit about your role and your interest in sort of integrated care?
Lisa:Absolutely. So, my background is as a registered nurse. I've worked in health care for more years than I care to admit, and have spent most of the last decade working in a chronic pain setting, both with people with chronic pain and with clinicians who manage it. So I've worked in the chronic pain sphere for about 10 years. And through that, realized that we didn't do very well for people with co occurring pain and, substance use.
Lisa:It became people put in the too hard basket. We're told they needed to talk to addiction medicine before we could help them with pain, whereas we know this is very bidirectional. We're looking at issues that are co occurring that we need to manage at the same time. And because of that, I led myself off to have a look at availability of education. I was lucky enough to get a scholarship through the ANMF and, which is the nurses union and the department of health to study, addictive behaviors.
Lisa:And after finishing my master's of addictive behaviors and changing some of the ways we were managing people in the pain clinic, people were able to access care, in a co occurring way that we were actually able to work together better with addiction medicine physicians, and we were able to hold more space for people with with substance use issues. And that really made a difference, and it made me feel better about what I was doing as a clinician, that we weren't telling people they were too hard anymore, which always broke my heart. It's it doesn't work. It was really sad. It made me feel like I was doing everyone a disservice.
Lisa:So coming here, having the opportunity to work in the Hamilton Centre means that we can look at this on a much broader scale. We can go, okay. On a statewide level, how are we approaching co occurring mental health and substance use? So it's a bit of a pivot for me from chronic pain, but I'm really excited to be working in this new well, it's not a new area. There's been work being done in this space for a long time, but a new statewide approach to supporting clinicians managing clients with co occurring conditions.
Lisa:And, hopefully, what we can see is a system where clinicians, like I did in the pain sphere, feel more empowered to hold space for people with co occurring conditions, can work more closely with their colleagues in other areas and other disciplines, and clients can have a more streamlined, unified approach to their care.
Shalini:That's brilliant. I think what we're really hearing then, Lisa, is that, you know, you've walked these these steps before yourself. Like, you've actually kinda gone out of your own bed, to pursue kind of, you know, upskilling this area, getting actually training specifically in this area. And then you've been able to kinda bring that back to your practice and see how it's been able to make a difference. But it also it sounds like from what you're saying, it's also made a difference to you and your sort of satisfaction in the role you're able to play.
Shalini:You've talked about feeling, you know, sad because because we come into these professions to try to help, and, you know, if you're in a helping profession, it's very hard to to have to say no and not to be able to help.
Lisa:Absolutely. It's I always would say that to, to patients with chronic pain that their GP has done done their best to try and help. No one goes into being a clinician to hurt people. We don't go in to make people worse. And unfortunately, because of experience or knowledge gaps, we do make the wrong decisions at times.
Lisa:And what we're trying to do with the Hamilton Centre is to help fill those knowledge gaps. So if I don't know what to do, I have someone I can call. I have a referral I can make. I can get assistance in a timely way from the experts, whether it's in a one off interaction that's going to either help me understand that the decisions I'm making are actually okay, that I'm doing I'm doing the right things, or point me in a different direction or help me make those service linkages and referrals that I need to support this client, in whatever it might be. So having that that expertise at fingertips really helps us when we're not quite sure what the right decision to make is.
Shalini:And you've touched on a couple of things around some of the services that the Hamilton Cente has already kinda got up and running. So that includes our service navigation line, the advice and mentorship capacity that people can access through that line. It's operational already. And then we've also got our networks, across the state as well, being able to kind of have shared care or conversations with people, be that in secondary or primary consultation. I wonder if you can share with us a little bit about the behind the scenes stuff that your role involves, and particularly around sort of that implementation process, the data that we're trying to collect?
Lisa:Yes. I said at the start, I am a clinician. I am definitely a clinician, but at times definitely feel more like a data manager, which, you know, is something that I do have a history in. So way before I was even in chronic pain, I did work at the Department of Health. And part of that role was looking at statewide services for aged care.
Lisa:So looking at, at aged care, one of my little jobs in that, it was quite big, was managing the statewide, aged care quality indicators. So we had a suite of indicators that were were developed out of identifying areas of clinical risk in aged care, which was a concept that was a little bit foreign at the time, to then manage to measure care, identify where there are gaps in care so that we could then address them. And that was a statewide program. So I'm sort of revisiting my more ancient history and looking at, well, what are the measures of success for this program? And that's working with the clinicians across the statewide program and looking at, alright, what do we want to be achieving?
Lisa:The idea behind that is that we set up a a system and processes that support really good clinical outcomes. So what we need to find out is what are those outcomes? What does it look like? What data do we need to collect to be able to measure those outcomes in a way that doesn't interfere with clinical care so that clinicians are not feeling like they're doing their whole day is displacing data and making reports. It's not a good use of clinical time.
Lisa:So instead, we're looking at what can we do in the moment to make sure that our minimal data set is actually giving us a good outcome. And then what we can do with that is we feed it back to the clinical network. We hold it internally. We look at where are our gaps in service, how often are we needing to see people, how effective is this as well? And this is certainly an area that we're gonna be moving more into in the latter half of this year to be looking at satisfaction of the service.
Lisa:You know, are people happy with the service we're providing? And if not, what what can we tweak? What can we change? So we're approaching data collection and evaluation in a in a way that we can structure improvement. So how can we drive improvement through the data we're collecting?
Lisa:And that's really what it comes down to. So that's sort of what I'm sitting with at the moment is reworking our data collection and management services, and we're hoping to have, you know, a more more robust system that really really will help us grow this service over the next 5 to 10 years. So So we're taking a long term view of data management as well. We want to look at those trends. We wanna be able to benchmark between services.
Lisa:We want to be able to identify areas of
Shalini:the data collection end of things is dry, but I think know what we're really hearing is about the passion that you have for it and also how it underpins, I think, the growth of something like this understanding in which direction we're going. I guess with, the Royal Commission, what we had is, you know, we had lots of stories of people or families kind of falling through those gaps. And and I think this is where this this sort of approach can really give us a system wide perspective on what the gaps look like. It's very hard to kind of understand, I think, how to get into the system, how to actually affect change if we don't know, you know, in real time what's actually happening on the ground. And so systems like this will will really help us.
Shalini:Think the other exciting thing you spoke about, Lisa, was a bit about that outcome monitoring end of the spectrum that we're trying to build into that so we can understand what happens with people after they've accessed care. You know, where where do they go on to next? Are we actually supporting more effective care? And that's an opportunity then to also hear from individuals and families, in that process as well as we start to onboard these, systems. I guess in terms of, you know, for the listeners for this podcast, if you, could fast forward, say, 5 years in the future, what would your dream be for what the Hamilton Center could achieve in that time?
Shalini:What would that look like for success?
Lisa:I've always used this weird analogy, and I'm aware that it's weird, of the problem with co occurring mental health issues and addiction being like the elephant. And how do we eat an elephant? It's one bite at a time. So our first bite for referrals was the area mental health and well-being services, who were the first first services who were able to directly refer clients to us. And we're looking at service expansion models at the moment, but we're aware that it's going to be over a long period of time that we're doing a full expansion.
Lisa:So in 5 years' time, I would love to see us being able to extend services across the stage to anyone and any anycomers. So I would hope that over the next 5 years that we're seeing that service expansion really take shape and that we can actually extend our services to everybody in Victoria, whether they're being referred by a general practitioner, whether they're being referred by the prison systems, whoever that referrer is and whoever is looking for support. I would really love to see that. And as you mentioned before, we have stood up our service navigation and clinician mentorship. I think that that's gonna really underpin that service expansion.
Lisa:It's that phone line and referral system of any clinician who can access that service, that that's really gonna help us to pinpoint what should the next bite be. Where is the next point where people are falling through those cracks? We wanna make sure that what we're doing is shoring up a system and not supporting where the best support is. So where there are already existing fantastic supports, and there are some really brilliant examples of integrated care within this sector, There's been some fantastic work done, and it would be good to say, okay, where there's some fantastic work done, what can we learn from what's already in place? And then where is some where are those bigger gaps?
Lisa:Where can we support clients in a way that's really meaningful? So in 5 years' time, I'd hope that we've extend extended all that and used those mentorship lines to help us identify what those targets should be moving forward. But I would really love to see us with that unified statewide approach really happening within the next 5 years.
Shalini:That's super inspiring. And I think, you know, many of our team members share that that vision and really excited by it. And I hope our listeners do as well. Thanks so much Lisa for joining us today on the podcast. You're welcome.
Shalini:So in today's episode, we've heard from Dan Lubman, executive clinical director at Turning Point, and Lisa Jarvie, our clinical quality improvement lead at the Hamilton Center. Thank you to our guests for joining us on the Hamilton Center podcast. This podcast is where we explore the thinking of leaders, service providers, workers, and people with lived experience, shaping the landscape of integrated CAN mental health and addiction services in Victoria. I'm Shalini Arunogiri, your host for today, and we can't wait to share these insights with you in future podcasts. Subscribe now for a journey into the heart of transformative mental health and addiction care.