>> Client Engagements: Mental Health Council of Australia - Building Resilient Communities

Mental Health Council of Australia - Building Resilient Communities
Client
Disciplines	Specialist Engagements
Situation	The MHCA had recently released the Not for Service report, an expose of the current situation of Mental Health Services in Australia. The Council was looking to develop a report which sought to identify what was working in smaller communities.
Challenge	Intended as a complement to and extension of the crucial work of the MHCA published in Not for Service, this study by O2C and QQSR was designed to investigate ways in which communities find things that, at the local level, do 'work' in providing support to people with a mental illness. In understanding this, the study will explore how communities are resilient and how resilience can be further developed. The study will work towards creating a knowledge management base for these ideas and, linked with this, to creating a network of people who can share ideas and support to other communities.
Response	O2C and QQSR in conjunction with the MHCA devised a strategy to seek information from communities typically not surveyed in traditional health surveys. The community resilience study was designed to meet with 10 towns (<20,000 population) that fall into the different clusters to identify specific health based strategies that are working to address the specific community demographic issues present in their region. The approach utilised both the World Café and Web Survey techniques. We also utilised Appreciative Inquiry which is a powerful approach to leadership, change and capacity building. It offers a theoretically grounded philosophy and is a highly participatory approach to human and organisational change. While the process is simple, it requires a profound shift of attention and action from deficit-based thinking and interactions. At the core, the process focuses on the discovery of what is possible, what is desired and what gives life to any system when it is at its very best.
Outcome	The study provided the following direct outputs: A physical report providing the best practices that have been identified through the web surveys and World Café activities A searchable database on the MHCA website which provides users with the ability to specify certain criteria and have presented to them solutions that worked in situations meeting those criteria. A bulletin board or chat style forum allowing submission of further ideas. In addition, the study also provided an indirect direct output: The opportunity for networking and capacity building in the locations visited, linked to increased morale and optimism that results from talking about 'what works'.