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Objective: The objectives of this paper are to provide an overview of recovery-focused models of care and discuss the implementation of the Strengths Model at St. Vincent's Mental Health Melbourne (SVMH), Victoria, Australia. Conclusions: The implementation of the Strengths Model at SVMH is discussed with particular emphasis on the process of implementation, service implications, practical challenges and dilemmas that have arisen, and proposed evaluation. Recovery-focused care is feasible and can enhance current practice of mental health services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The main purpose of this study was to examine the preceptorship relationship between students' and mental health nurses' in the mental health setting. Design: This study used a qualitative research design: grounded theory. This type of research method was deemed appropriate due to the limited knowledge of preceptorship in mental health. Setting: One metropolitan area mental health service (AMHS) in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia agreed participate in this study. The range of settings included adult acute, rehabilitation and community. Subjects: Twenty 2nd year undergraduates nursing students from one metropolitan university in Melbourne, Australia agreed to participate in the study. In addition, nine mental health nurses from the nominated AMHS also consented to be involved. Main Outcome: The development of a substantive theory to describe the preceptorship relationship as informed by the study participants, student nurses and mental health nurses. For the purposes of this paper the category of 'reconciling difference' is the focus. Results: The core category identified for mental health nurses was 'attempting to accomplish connectedness' and for the students, 'coping with uncertainty'. There were also many sub-categories, one of which was identified by both groups. This category is the main focus of this paper; reconciling difference. Conclusion: Dealing with the uncertainty of, and reconciling differences between, the general and mental health environments emerged as a strong theme from the research. Student nurses were faced with confronting situations within the environment and made various suggestions for improvement so that their learning could be enhanced rather than inhibited. These findings make an important contribution to the specific issues concerning preceptorship in the mental health environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing concern regarding the use of cannabis among adolescents, especially given recent evidence highlighting its link with later mental disorders. Encouraging young people with mental health or drug issues to seek professional help is an important early intervention strategy; however, adolescents are typically reluctant to do so and instead turn to their peers for help. Peers may not have the skills or knowledge required to assist their friends to access professional help. This paper describes the development and evaluation of MAKINGtheLINK, a school-based health promotion programme that promotes help-seeking behaviour for mental health and cannabis use issues among young people. The MAKINGtheLINK programme was piloted with 182 Year 10 students at a secondary school in Melbourne, Australia. Forty teachers received the MAKINGtheLINK staff professional development session. The delivery of the MAKINGtheLINK programme was found to be both acceptable and feasible within a school setting. Students and teachers described it as a fun, engaging, helpful and important programme. Students reported increased confidence and awareness of how to seek help for themselves or a friend, and teachers indicated increased confidence and awareness of how to assist students to seek help for cannabis use and/or mental health problems. MAKINGtheLINK was successfully implemented within the school curriculum. We believe this is the first school-based programme that specifically focuses on facilitating professional help-seeking for cannabis use and mental health problems among young people, and demonstrates that utilizing peer models for help-seeking is a valuable resource for early intervention initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To describe the health needs identified in children attending a comprehensive health assessment at a tertiary hospital, multidisciplinary clinic for children following entry to out-of-home care and timeliness of referral and assessment compared with national recommendations.Methods: This was a retrospective audit of all the children who attended the Pathway to Good Health clinic at The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne from May 2013 until 31 August 2016.Results: A total of 119 children aged 0-12 years attended the clinic during the audit period. Of these children, 17% (including more than 30% of 0-2-year-olds) were not up-to-date with immunisations, and 87% had physical health concerns that were addressed on the day or needed further management. Over 50% had mental health concerns identified (76% of 7-12-year-olds). In children aged 3-6 years, 64% had behavioural problems and 77% had developmental problems identified. Only a third of the children was referred to the Pathway to Good Health clinic within the national standard of 30 days post-entry to care, and 24% of children attended within 3 months of entry to care.Conclusion: Children in out-of-home care within Victoria have high rates of physical, mental and developmental health concerns, consistent with previous studies. Timeliness of attendance at the clinic was low compared with national recommendations, even within a programme designed to facilitate timely health checks. This is the second and largest Australian study exploring timeliness of health checks. Further research would establish whether these results are more systemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This article explores the short- and long-term outcomes of the Postgraduate Overseas Specialists Training (POST) Program. This program, based at St. Vincent's Mental Health (Melbourne) facilitates short-term clinical placements in collaboration with the Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne for mental health workers from the Asia-Pacific. The program aims to contribute to capacity development in the region's mental health workforce. Methods: A total of 164 Fellows from 15 countries participated in the POST Program from 2001 to 2008. From mid-2006 to mid-2008, all POST Fellows (n=71) were asked to complete an evaluation survey on the last day of their placement. Six to 12 months after returning to their home countries, these same Fellows were sent a further survey to report on the long-term outcomes of their POST placement. The quantitative and qualitative data collected from the returned questionnaires were used as the basis for this evaluation. Results: The short-term evaluation surveys indicate that the majority of POST Fellows were very satisfied with the training program and their training supervisors. Service developments and improvements, enhanced clinical leadership, attitude change and broad peer education emerged as potential long-term outcomes. Discussion: The POST Program, as an out-of-country clinical training program, may play a unique role in contributing to building capacity of mental health clinicians in the Asia-Pacific region. However, further evaluation is required to ascertain the longer term impact of such professional training program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about the 2008 Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Congress held on May 25-29 in Melbourne, Victoria is presented. Professor James Angus officially opened the Congress with a speech about working in partnerships and the development of the teaching of psychiatry at the University of Melbourne. Professor Ken Kirkby talked about education and learning in psychiatry and opportunities that the College provides in these areas.

• Summary: What characterizes the practice of expert mental health social workers? An observational study of social workers in a public mental health network in Melbourne, Australia sought to answer this question and the findings are reported in this article. As part of a larger study of mental health social work expertise, direct observation was done of the work of six practitioners engaged in a range of activities about which they were subsequently interviewed. • Findings: In the first stage based on group interviews, six themes were identified. These were termed: 1) 'The Knowledge'; 2) 'A lot of hard grind'; 3) 'We are here for the clients'; 4) 'The complicated and the difficult'; 5) 'The stone in the shoe'; and 6) 'Going ten rounds with the system'. In this second stage observational study, evidence was found for all of these six themes, plus two additional ones relating to supervision and the emotive content of the work. • Applications: Development of expertise consists of three elements: 1) a personality predisposition and personal capacity; 2) education; and 3) a conducive workplace environment. The application of the findings lies in developing the conditions for these elements to emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Substantial delays in providing access to treatment in first-episode psychosis have been well documented. The present study examines the impact of strategies aimed at improving access and reducing delays. Method A pilot community education campaign was conducted with the aim of reducing the duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) in a geographically defined intervention sector located in the northwestern region of Melbourne, Australia. Utilising a quasi-experimental design, a comparison sector with similar demographics was selected from another part of the north-western region. A mobile early detection team and the same treatment system served both sectors. Results While there was no significant difference between the mean DUP for intervention and comparison sectors, the distributional features of DUP between the two regions were significantly different. In the intervention sector, disproportionately more cases with very long DUP were detected. When a small number of outliers were removed, the mean and median DUP in the intervention sector was reduced. Conclusion These findings highlight the complexity of treatment access and delay and suggest that efforts to reduce DUP may have two effects, not one. Firstly, a different sample of cases is treated through the detection of hidden ‘long DUP’ cases that otherwise may have remained untreated. Secondly, the DUP for the remainder may indeed be reduced. More research with larger samples and more potent campaign strategies is clearly required. It may also be worth considering whether there is a safe and ethical way to undertake a RCT of early versus delayed antipsychotic treatment to perhaps settle the DUP debate once and for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1995, the Royal Children's Hospital Mental Health Service in Melbourne developed the first telepsychiatry programme in child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in Australia. A survey of 25 CAMHS clinicians in five rural regions who had used videoconferencing showed that 64% had used the technology for more than 18 months, and 20% had used it for 7–12 months. Also, 60% had used the technology on over 30 occasions, and 24% had used it on 20–29 occasions. Respondents clearly recognized its benefits in terms of their increased knowledge and skills (96%), strengthening of relationships with colleagues (92%) and decreased sense of isolation (92%). To build on the success of telepsychiatry there are a number of challenges that health service managers will need to address. Telepsychiatry works most effectively as a tool to complement face-to-face contact. It cannot be promoted as the total solution to the issue of isolation from mainstream services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]