Really good news for the mental health system (finally!)

Agitated Agitators! Honor here.

Yes it’s me, Honor, the other, more silent half of the Big Feels bandwagon. 

Many of you haven’t heard from me in a while. A big reason has been that, over the past two years, I’ve been involved with the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System (quite a mouthful). 

For those overseas, Victoria is the state where Melbourne is, aka Big Feels HQ.

In Australia, Royal Commissions are our highest form of inquiry. They are set up to be independent from government, usually to fix something that’s gone very very wrong. In this case: the mental health system over the past three decades. 

This Royal Commission was particularly special because the state government already agreed to implementing every one of the recommendations before they even knew what they were going to be! A government committing to fixing a system that will cost an unknown amount of money… that my friends, does not happen very often.

It’s been a long ride and finally, the final report (all 13kg of it) was released in a special sitting of parliament earlier this month. And we were there to see it happen.

The surreality (that’s a word now) of being quoted in parliament

I was lucky enough to have the privilege of being a witness to the Royal Commission (as was my Big Feels Co-Founder, Graham).

And in this special sitting of parliament, there I was being quoted by name in the opening speech, by head of the Royal Commission Penny Armytage.

The quote went like this:

"It wasn't until I started working in advocacy that I started to understand that a big part of what I was dealing with and struggling with was a broken and traumatic system. I had, up until that point, thought that what was happening was because I was a broken and ill person."

Sitting there in this historic setting, I couldn’t help but think of myself, all those years ago. Before I had started working in the mental health system. Back when I really did think that the reason the 'help' didn't help me was because of how messed up I must be. That I must be a truly broken human, a stain on an otherwise working health system.

And now here I was, being quoted in parliament talking about this very issue, with all eyes on how we are finally going to make things better.

It felt, well, surreal. And of course I immediately burst into tears. 

(As you do in parliament.)

It’s been a long and winding road between then and now, with several questionable decisions (including uploading a video of myself in psych hospital - which was really the start of whatever this journey is). It has been a huge privilege not just to be a part of this process, but also to have been alive right now to see this happening.

Graham and I in our best life drag, for our day in parliament. The first time Grey's worn a suit in about 2 years?

An apology for all of us

As the speeches rolled on, one thing that really struck me was the admittance (from both sides of politics) that not only was the mental health system broken, but that successive governments have failed folks using the system, for decades.

You don’t really get apologies like this very often.

I would actually recommend listening to the speeches - I found Victoria Premier Dan Andrews’ speech very moving. It might be good for your soul.

And I want to extend this apology to all of you, whether you’re elsewhere in Australia, or one of the many Big Feels Clubbers around the world. Because this story is the same in so many countries. 

If you’re someone who’s been hurt, harmed, or simply let down by a system that does not meet you where you are in times of profound distress.

If you’ve been exhausted by a system that ping pongs you through services - where it’s a full-time job just to administer your own support.

If you’ve been ground down by services that treat you like an illness or a thing to be managed or dismissed or medicated and passed on.

This apology is for you too.

Much love to all of you. From the bottom of my heart, I hope times are a-changing, not just here, but around the world.

More than just apologies

But of course we want more than just apologies! The good news? There’s plenty to be excited about in terms of real change as a result of this Commission.

And for those not in Victoria, a lot of folks are saying that these transformational changes in Victoria may lead the way for changes in other parts of Australia, and beyond. There’s been a lot of eyes nationally and internationally on what comes out of this Commission.

So here are four things I’m really excited to see in the Commission’s recommendations.

Exciting Thing #1. Alternatives to emergency departments

Emergency departments suck at the best of times. They especially suck if you are there for mental health reasons. 

Anyone who’s been to one (or faced the prospect of going to one, out of sheer desperation) knows this. The Commission has recommended that genuine alternatives are created in every region in Victoria so that there’s somewhere better to go when things get really tough.

Picture, instead of heading to a white, fluorescent-lit emergency department to front up to a harried nurse and tell them your troubles, you could go to a living room type “drop-in” centre, where a majority of the staff are people who have been through their own similar crises and are trained to support you through it. You can meet with them and talk (or just have a cuppa and annihilate a stress ball in the corner) for as long as you like.

These alternatives to ED have been set up in other parts of the world where they’ve been reported to reduce admissions to psych hospital by 50%, because they meet people’s needs right there and then. And speaking of hospital...

Exciting Thing #2. Peer respite 

A few years ago I wrote an article for the ABC called ‘Where do you go when you're afraid you'll kill yourself?’ I wrote about how I had been to psych hospital, and found it wayyyy less helpful than I expected (and in some ways distinctly unhelpful), so I knew that I did not want to go back there, even when I was desperate. 

But... where do you go then?

Imagine if when you’re in a real bad spot, there was another option. If instead of hospital, you could check yourself into a residential service that’s homely, inviting, and most importantly that’s run by people who’ve been through similar shit to you.

Well, we’re about to do this in Victoria.

Called ‘peer respites’, these have been run successfully in other countries for years. The Commission highlighted one in New Zealand where two people who’d stayed as “guests” (but also happened to be nurses) were so impressed after staying there, they quit their jobs to come work at the respite instead. Not a bad advert?

Exciting Thing #3. Peer support EVERYWHERE

You may have noticed a pattern so far in my exciting things. All of them involve services with more peer workers. That is, people with their own personal lived experience of big feelings, who’ve been trained to support you through the hardest bits.

There’s a reason Graham and I like peer support so much. 

As we hear so often through Big Feels, connecting with other people who are going through this stuff themselves can be an absolute game changer. 

And it’s also just... common sense? That’s why peer support is par for the course in other areas of life. For example, when you have a kid in Australia, you’re put in touch with other new parents in your council area. We know the early days of parenthood are scary and confusing, and we know that support from other people in the thick of it can be really helpful. The same thing applies with your mental health - having folks walking alongside you can make all the difference.

The Commission has recommended that peer support be a core part of the new community model of mental health care. That means that every region in Victoria will be required to deliver peer support services, so we should see more offerings in this space. Our hope is this will also drive a cultural shift in how services are delivered in general, because there’ll be more people like us in there doing the work.

Exciting Thing #4. A new hub for lived experience leaders

This last one is really what we’ll need to make sure everything above is going to happen. It’s basically a hub for lived experience work in Victoria, run by people with their own big feelings.

When my Big Feels Co-Founder Graham first started working in mental health in New Zealand, it was at a mental health agency run and staffed entirely by people who’d been through the same messy life stuff he had. They ran peer support services, but also had their fingers in so many pies across the system that they were able to really affect cultural change.

That was nearly twenty years ago, and now, finally, Victoria is going to get something similar.

Here's why this matters. Led and staffed by people with lived experience, this new agency’s main purpose will be to increase lived experience leadership throughout the system, so that things like peer respites and other peer-run offerings become more commonplace. Graham and I are both excited by this because we know first-hand through running Big Feels Club just how different mental health offerings can look when they’re run by people who’ve ‘been there’.

Phew. Okay, that’s a lot - and that’s only four of the 74 recommendations!

My mug was on TV again

ABC’s The Drum reached out to me last week and I got to talk a bit about changing the mental health system, as well as the Big Feels Club, and the No Feeling Is Final podcast. 

I've been doing this sort of thing more lately, because I think it's really important that we have more spokespeople on this topic who have actually been through it themselves, and who aren't just saying 'we need more hospital beds'. (Even if I still find being on TV a bit intense, in this case because I was meant to be on holiday and it kind of maybe ruined my holiday because I was a total stress cadet before the interview. #YouLiveYouLearn.) After this latest media blitz, including The Project, and this really great article in The Age, I think I am finally learning how to be more assertive with media, to get them to focus on the stuff that actually matters (like system change) instead of just pushing the usual 'here is a sad lady being sad' angle.

So that's something!

For keen beans, you can check out the executive summary of the Royal Commission’s Final Report over on the Royal Commission's website, to see the vision they’ve laid out for Victoria’s new mental health system.

And for really keen beans, you can find the full report at that same link. Me, Graham, and Big Feels are all featured multiple times. You can search our names if you’re mostly interested in the kinds of things we are personally advocating for.

Hey, do you want to hear more about this kind of thing?

There’s loooaaadds more detail I could get into on all the recommended changes, and what needs to happen next to make sure we really get them across the line. 

If you want to know more about what’s happening from the mouth of Big Feels, let us know which things you’re most interested in, and we might do some more deep dives into the opportunities, outstanding questions and promising signs.

Click the pink button below to share your thoughts, questions, or general noises of encouragement!

Okay I should probably go lie down now.