• ASIST - Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training
• Mental Health First Aid training
• Boston Training
• Helen Glover Training

Delivery of Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST)

First Aid through ASIST: Appropriate intervention during the crisis of suicide

First Aid training has become a familiar concept in Western society, because we know that, when an emergency happens, skilled professionals aren’t always the first ones on the scene. But if there is some level of emergency-handling skills distributed throughout the general public, when an emergency happens, the people whose lives are at risk are more likely to get the assistance that they need. This can save lives.

ASIST is just like First Aid and its focus is specifically on suicide. ASIST is also a way of training people to have the skills they need to stay alive while the net is dragging their lives, and hopefully get free of it all together. There is a great need for this kind of training.

The ASIST program aims to:

• Reduce attitudinal barriers which hinder the ability to be direct and comfortable with suicidal situations
• Dispel myths about suicide
• Identify the indicators and assess suicidal risk
• Provide people with skills to intervene when someone is at risk of suicide
• Build collaborative resource networks for suicidal people

ASIST is a Canadian gatekeeper program developed and managed by Living Works. In Australia the training program is facilitated by Lifeline in Melbourne with trainers based throughout the country.

The Northern Territory delivers more ASIST workshops per population than any other State or Territory in Australia. This is possibly due to a number of reasons:

• Anglicare NT have played a major role in supporting the ASIST network of trainers over many years
• There is a great demand for this training by workers and local organisations who are requiring the confidence and skills to work with people at risk of suicide.
• The NT has the highest rate of suicide, an equally high rate of suicidal behaviour and the issues in the NT are challenged by geography, isolation and the difficulties faced by people living in remote communities and town camps.
• There are few options of support around suicide and mental health, especially in remote communities and therefore the “gatekeepers” who might be the night patrol workers or the youth workers require the skills to support people until further professional support can be found.

Course information
ASIST is offered as a 2-day interactive workshop and is delivered by local trainers. The course is suitable for workers, volunteers and family who wish to learn more about how to reduce the immediate risk of a suicide and increase the support for a person at risk. Also, Train the Trainer courses are delivered across Australia for people who wish to become ASIST trainers. This course is a 5-day intensive and requires a commitment from workers and organisations that new trainers will use their skills to deliver workshops.

For information about training in Alice Springs or Tennant Creek contact LPP on (08) 8950 4608 or 8950 4609 or Lifeline Alice Springs on (08) 8953 1250. You can also visit Living Works at
www.livingworks.org.au/pages/asist.php or phone on (03) 9894 1833.

Mental Health First Aid

There are many reasons why people benefit from training in Mental Health First Aid. Mental health problems are a common part of our society, the most common being depression, anxiety and psychotic disorders. Thus there is a high probability throughout the course of any person’s life that they may either develop a mental illness or come into contact with someone who does.

In addition to this, there is often a stigma associated with mental illness, which can lead to people being ashamed about seeking help or seeking the wrong type of help. Also, professional help is not always on hand, therefore the actions of a helper can play a vital role in determining how quickly a person experiencing a problem receives help and/or recovers.

Mental Health First Aid aims to provide participants with skills and knowledge about a range of mental health issues. It is hoped this information will help participants to manage a potential or developing mental health problem in him or herself or in a family member or in a friend or work colleague.

Like regular first aid training, the course does not train people to become professional “counsellors or therapists”, nor to diagnosis health problems. However, it does provide participants with up-to-date information on depression, anxiety, psychosis, schizophrenia and substance use disorders. Participants in the course will learn:

• how to recognize the symptoms of mental illnesses
• possible causes or risk factors and the evidence-based medical, psychological and alternative treatments available
• how to give appropriate initial help and support to a person suffering one of these mental illnesses
• how to take appropriate action if a crisis situation arises involving suicidal behavior, panic attack, stress reaction to trauma or threatening psychotic behavior
  

For more information on Mental Health First Aid visit www.mhfa.com.au or if you have any enquiries or would like to arrange a Mental Health First Aid course contact Rita Riedel on 8950 4613

Boston Training

Each year MHACA organises training for program staff and other service providers on the Boston Model of Psychiatric Rehabilitation.

The Boston Model – on which MHACA’s Rehabilitation and Outreach Programs are founded – is based on the experiences of recovery by consumers (Patricia Deegan, Mary Ellen Copeland) and the research of William Anthony who has formalised and marketed the framework as the Boston University Psychiatric Rehabilitation model.

In Australia it is delivered by trainers at Prahran Mission (link to www.prahranmission.org.au/BostonTraining.pdf ) who are accredited by Boston University Centre for Psychiatric Rehabilitation (the training in the USA is a three or four year degree course).

Psychiatric rehabilitation assists people with severe psychiatric disabilities to increase their functioning so they are successful and satisfied in the environment of their choice with the least amount of ongoing professional intervention. This process promotes the development of new meaning and purpose as the individual grows beyond the catastrophic effects of mental illness (recovery).

What does this mean?

In practical terms the Boston Model:

• places high value on providing opportunities to people to normalise roles and relationships as fully as possible
• facilitates social learning and behavioural change through experiential activities
• attempts to minimise differences in role, authority and status between the consumer and the helping professional
• deals with the practical, realistic aspects of a persons adjustment needs

Key Values of Boston Model

The key psychiatric rehabilitation values on which the Boston Model are based:

• Person Orientation:
  A focus on the person first and foremost as a person with strengths, not as a “case” exhibiting symptoms of disease
• Functioning:
  A focus on performance of everyday activities
• Involvement:
  A focus on people participating in all aspects of their rehabilitation as well as having a voice in the government of their program
• Individualisation:
  A focus on tailoring all aspects of their rehabilitation program to the person’s needs and wants
• Environmental-Specificity:
  A focus on the specific context of where a person lives, learns, socialises and/or works
• Self-Determination:
  A focus on people making choices and accepting responsibility for their lives
• Outcome-orientation:
  A focus on evaluating rehabilitation in terms of the impact on client outcomes
• Support:
  A focus on providing assistance for as long as it is needed and wanted
• Growth Potential:
  A focus on the inherent capacity of any person to improve his or her functioning and status.

Helen Glover training

A consultant, researcher, speaker, educator, lecturer and person with a lived experience of mental illness, Helen Glover uses her professional and lived experience to expand and challenge the concepts of recovery within mental health service delivery. (See also articles on Self-driven Recovery).

For the past few years MHACA has invited Helen to Alice Springs to run workshops for consumers, management and staff and each year we look forward to her visit.

Helen emphasises that as service providers it is important to “keep asking questions and have open discussions” about what we do - to ensure that programs continue to benefit the people we work with. Some of the questions Helen raises include:

• HOW do we define and evaluate someone's recovery? Who decides?
• WHAT role does self-empowerment have in recovery? Does compliance mean progress?
• HOW do we effectively engage consumers and carers in our programs? Do we actively listen, encourage and support or do we impose our own ideas of wellness and conformity?
• HOW can we effectively keep evolving as a service? Like going to the gym and maintaining our fitness, we need to keep 'training and working out' to stay fit – we need to stay flexible to stay effective
• WHAT is happening elsewhere – in non-medical models? In other services? Around the world?

Having lived through and significantly recovered from her own mental illness, Helen speaks passionately on some of the troughs and peaks of her own journey of recovery. She believes that as workers it is not our job to change or 'fix' people - to act as if they are broken - but to relate to people as whole human beings: to respect and appreciate each person's journey and help people re-define themselves through their abilities (what they can do) rather than their disabilities.

Helen has spoken and lectured internationally on the challenges and opportunities of the provision and development of recovery-oriented mental health services. She has worked primarily within Australia and England, with fellow professionals and those that use services and their families, to promote practices that support wellness.

She recently has worked as the Chief Executive Officer of CHANGE in Birmingham, UK. CHANGE provides residential and community crisis recovery alternatives to hospital admissions and is staffed by recovery guides who identify primarily with the lived experience of their own recovery from mental health difficulties.
In 2001 Helen was commissioned by the National Institute for Mental Health England (NIMHE) to write its discussion papers on “ Developing Recovery-Orientated Services for Mental Health Services in England”. She has also been a co-researcher in an Australian study Recovery from Schizophrenia from a Consumer Perspective.
On her return to Australia in 2004 she accepted a position with Queensland Health to develop and deliver a curriculum for mental health professionals on recovery-orientated practice .

For further information please contact Helen Glover at enLightened Consultants
on 0433 537 444 or email helenglover@bigpond.com.