Brisbane South Workshop 1
Our ‘Right care, first time, where you live’ program kicked off in Brisbane South on Thursday. It was fantastic to see so many passionate people around the table talking about the youth mental health system in their region. The discussions were all very respectful and driven by a recognition that our mental health system need systemic reform. We gained many valuable insights into the challenges the system faces in the Brisbane South region, where programs and services are going well and where the gaps are. Our systems modellers will now use these insights to create a computational model of what is happening in the youth mental health system in the Brisbane South region.
Young people in the regions of Australia are struggling with their mental health and often have difficulty accessing, navigating and engaging with the services and programs that are available.
Funding and coordination of youth mental health programs and services in regional Australia is very challenging because the mental health system is complex and fragmented. Workforces are constrained and financial resources are limited. In this environment, it isn’t always easy for decision makers to determine which program and services are going to have the most impact and benefit for young people.
The Brain and Mind Centre’s ‘Right care, first time, where you live’ research Program aims to support regional decisions makers to make evidence informed decisions on how to coordinate and fund youth mental health services in their region. The Brisbane South Primary Health Network (PHN) and their community will be working with the Brain and Mind Centre to co-create advanced system dynamic models that provide a birds-eye perspective on what is happening in the youth mental health system within their region.
“We’re delighted to be embarking on the systems modelling phase of the Right care, first time, where you live Program with the Brisbane South PHN. It’s exciting to be working with such a diverse region. The PHN is passionate about improving mental health outcomes for young people and have made the mental health and wellbeing of young people a key priority for their region”, says Professor Ian Hickie.
The Brisbane South PHN region covers a large geographic area south of the Brisbane River which includes metropolitan, rural and remote island location. The region is home to approximately 1.1 million people from diverse backgrounds and cultures.
“Our research team will work closely with the Brisbane South PHN and community stakeholders, including young people with lived experiences of mental illness, to map out the youth mental health system in the region, and then co-create, using the best available evidence and data from the region, a dynamic systems model of the youth mental health system”, says Professor Ian Hickie.
“Systems modelling provides us with a way of mapping and quantifying a complex problem, and creating an interactive decision support tool that provides a safe virtual environment for testing alternative strategies to improve youth mental health before they are implemented in the real world,” says Associate Professor Jo-An Occhipinti.
The “Right care, first time, where you live” Program brings together representatives from academia, policy program planning, clinical practice, economics, the private and NGO sectors, local government, emergency services, and importantly, people with lived experience of mental illness and suicidal behaviour to co-create these models. Having diverse voices such as these in the room, mapping the local drivers of psychological distress and mental disorders and suicidal behaviours in young people, as well as understanding service pathways, helps us make sure that we're building dynamic models that aren't just an idealised representation of the system, but reflect the drivers and dynamics of the local context.
The goal of this process is to support the Brisbane South PHN on the integration and coordination of care as well as enabling the PHN to assess, using data and evidence, whether services commissioned are likely to deliver outcomes for the community. A dynamic systems model is a decision support tool that can be used by decision makers to test ‘what-if’ scenarios. For example, what if we increased mental health education programs in schools, would that reduce the number young people going to emergency departments in acute psychological distress.
The first participatory workshop was held in Brisbane South, Thursday 23 March 2023.