Initiatives and resources

In 2021, the National Mental Health Commission funded the Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Research and Education Group to provide a spotlight report exploring how the concepts of person-centred care (PCC) and consumer directed care (CDC) are understood and experienced in Australia’s mental health and suicide prevention systems.

The project worked with consumers, carers, practitioners and policy makers to identify key themes, tensions and possibilities relating to these care concepts. We also worked to codesign key recommendations, outcomes and considerations that encourage shifts in thinking and practices across service systems.

"Safety is the biggest concern for people engaging with mental health services, and people often feel that current services are unsafe ." (Consumer leader)

"Reform needs to be attacked at multiple levels. Leadership and workforce changes are required. There is the need for lived experience and people who understand person-centred concepts to develop services from the ground up." (Policy leader)

We acknowledge and thank everyone involved in the consultation and codesign stages of the project. The full report and plain language summary is below as well as a list of appendices.

Download the Spotlight Report: Person-centred and Consumer Directed Mental Health Care: Transforming Care Experiences

Download the Summary Report: Person-centred and Consumer Directed Mental Health Care: Transforming Care Experiences

Appendices and Background Information
> Appendix 1: Consumer and carer experience and perspectives [pdf, 286kb]
> Appendix 2: Background discussion paper: Person-centred care and consumer directed care in mental health [pdf, 307kb]
> Appendix 3: Interview and focus group questions [pdf, 37kb]
> Appendix 4: Coding analysis framework [pdf, 179kb]
> Appendix 5: The story so far - co-design session notes [pdf, 238kb]
> Appendix 6: Aligned approaches for person-centred and consumer directed care [pdf, 273kb]
> Plain language summary [pdf, 220kb]
> Audio recording on Person-centred Care and Consumer Directed Care Principles [mp3, 5.1MB]
> Invitation of codesign sessions for participants [pdf, 586kb]

In September 2021 the Office of the Chief Psychiatrist, South Australia commissioned the Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Research and Education Group to develop a review to support COVID-19 recovery planning in SA.

The review makes recommendations that span different levels of intervention in the community, across government, and in primary and specialist care. It proposes interventions and support strategies that should be co-designed with people with lived experience and community groups, and informed by social and economic factors that might lead to mental distress. The review links with broader mental health and suicide prevention strategies.

> Access the COVID-19 and Mental Health review on the Office of the Chief Psychiatrist COVID-19 website

This resource developed by UniSA is a practical guide for organisers of community mental health-related events that may potentially be triggering for people who have experienced trauma associated with bushfires. The resource may also be appropriate for other community events where trauma informed approaches are necessary.

Written by Dr Kate Gunn (Clinical Psychologist and Senior Research Fellow, University of South Australia) and Professor Nicholas Procter (Chair: Mental Health Nursing, University of South Australia), 2021. We acknowledge and thank people with lived experience who contributed to the development of this resource.

This resource has been developed working within a trauma-informed approach. The contents are intended as a guide and should be adapted and expanded to accommodate individual safety needs of participants.

> Download the trauma-informed guide for bushfire-related mental health events [pdf, 434kb]

The voice of consumers and carers is a vital part of mental health service design and delivery. They are an essential source of knowledge and experience to help improve mental health care from all touchpoints. For this reason the National Mental Health Commission, in consultation with the National Mental Health Consumer and Carer Forum and the Safety and Quality Partnership Standing Committee, developed the Mental Health Safety and Quality Engagement Guide.

The Guide aims to empower and support mental health consumers and carers and health service leaders to engage in meaningful partnerships to improve safety and quality in mental health services.

> Read the Mental Health Safety and Quality Engagement Guide online
> Read more about the Guide's development
> Watch the video message from National Mental Health Commission CEO Christine Morgan

The Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Research Group (MHSPRG) Lived Experience Framework has been created as a set of principles, guidelines and actions to assist our research and educational partnerships with consumers and carers. This has been developed over recent years in conversation with the Shared Learning in Clinical Practice members, our adjunct lived experience lecturers and the Lived Experience Leadership and Advocacy Network. 

> Download the MHSPRG Lived Experience Engagement Framework [pdf, 562kb]

The Trauma-Informed Post-Incident Conversation Guide was developed by the Trauma Informed Practice Communities of Practice, co-facilitated by Professor Nicholas Procter, in 2019. It has been endorsed by SA Health's Trauma Informed Practice Working Group and is designed to guide trauma-informed conversations between mental health clinicians, individuals and family members following an incident of violence, aggression, or restraint involving a person receiving care. 

> Download the Trauma-Informed Post-Incident Conversation Guide [pdf, 98kb]

This report provides a summary of an Honours research degree project undertaken at the University of South Australia in consultation with Sanctuary BPD carer support group.

Honours candidate: Kristy Acres
Supervisors: Dr Mark Loughhead, Professor Nicholas Procter

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a common mental illness which features challenges for ongoing psychosocial functioning. The experience of feelings and behaviours relating to self-harm and/or suicide often result in crisis situations for the consumer and family. Carers, partners and significant others are instrumental in the support and management of crisis with the consumer and often seek hospital care via emergency departments.

This qualitative study aimed to better understand the carer experience of nursing practices and communication whilst in emergency departments. It explored the common and unique experiences of carers when they are supporting consumers with BPD to access ED based care; views and expectations of carers towards nursing practices and communication in emergency departments; the ED nursing practices carers see as effective and preferred; and carers’ views on overcoming barriers to effective nursing care for consumers with BPD and for themselves in the caring role.

This project was sponsored by Sanctuary BPD Carer Support Group and UniSA’s Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Research and Education Group.

Download the Report

Published in November 2017, this resource was developed as a collaboration between the Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Research Group and the Whyalla Suicide Prevention Network. It is designed to be used by any South Australian Suicide Prevention Networks who are interested in evaluating the impact of their activities.

> Download the Research Paper: Evaluation Toolkit for South Australia Suicide Prevention Networks [pdf, 945kb]
> Download the Suicide Prevention Network Evaluation Toolkit 2018 [pdf, 466kb]

Professor Nicholas Procter contributed to this report commissioned by the Australian Commission on Quality in Safety in Health Care, published in June 2017.

> Read the ACQSHC Medication Safety in Mental Health report

In 2017 Professor Nicholas Procter was an investigator in the South Australian Chief Psychiatrist's review of the Oakden Older Person's Mental Health facility, leading to the publication of The Oakden Report. Recommendations were made to the South Australian Government, and accepted, to close the Oakden facility and establish a new service. 

> Download The Oakden Report from Analysis & Policy Observatory (APO)

Published in March 2017, this resource for mental health professionals is the result of a mentorship program undertaken by Professor Nicholas Procter with nurses and occupational therapists working in forensic mental health in South Australia in 2016.

 > Download the Trauma Informed Approaches in Forensic Mental Health Resource [pdf, 1.09MB]

Nicholas Procter, Rhonda L. Wilson, Helen P. Hamer, Denise McGarry, Mark Loughhead (eds)
Cambridge University Press, 2022 (3e)

Mental Health: A Person-centred Approach (Cambridge University Press) is the first mental health nursing title in Cambridge’s 500-year history. It aligns leading mental health research with the human connections that can and should be made in mental health care. It seeks to deepen readers' understanding of themselves, the work they do, and how this intersects with the lives and crises of people with mental illness. This book adopts a storytelling approach, which encourages engagement with the lives and needs of consumers and carers in mental health. A fourth edition is forthcoming. 

 > Watch the first edition launch video

Cambridge University Press, 2016

This textbook features contributions from Professor Nicholas Procter and Dr Monika Ferguson of the Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Research Group. 

> Find out more about Clinical Nursing Skills on the Cambridge University Press website

In this video published as part of R U OK?'s #theresmoretosay campaign, Professor Nicholas Procter shares conversation tips for listening to and engaging with someone in distress. 

> Watch the video on the R U OK? YouTube channel

In this Enterprising Partnerships Talk, Professor Nicholas Procter, Chair of Mental Health Nursing and leader of the Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Research Group, discusses the importance of human connectedness and kindness in nursing, mental health and suicide prevention.

> Watch the video

Together with a multidisciplinary team from nursing, pharmacy, social work, linguistics and psychiatry, Professor Nicholas Procter, UniSA’s Chair of Mental Health Nursing, explores when a person should be discharged in a community mental health setting.

> Watch the video 

In this film, Julie, a senior mental health clinician, shares her experiences of living with psychotic illness, having treatment, and being in suicide-related distress. The film also features Julie’s experience of, and response to, command and derogatory hallucinations. It is designed to assist mental health practitioners, carers, consumers and policy makers working in mental health.

> Watch the video

A learning resource arising from an ongoing collaboration between the University of South Australia’s Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Research Group, SA Health, and MOSH Australia.

Please note that the personal content disclosed within this film is fictional with no intention to depict any specific person, and is for educational purposes only.

> Watch the video

A learning resource resulting from collaboration between UniSA’s Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Research Group and SA Health’s Acute Matters as part of the Shared Learning in Clinical Practice initiative.

Please note that characters depicted within this video are fictional with no intention to depict any specific person.

> Watch the video