The University of Queensland’s Mental Health in Climate Change Transdisciplinary Research Network was established in late 2019 in response to government, industry and community requests for new knowledge about how climate change is likely to impact social and emotional wellbeing through more frequent natural disasters, and for evidence-informed interventions that will build community resilience in the face of these disasters. Climate change-related events are known to be associated with psychological distress, worsened mental health (particularly among people with pre-existing mental health conditions), increased psychiatric hospitalisations, higher mortality among people with mental illness and heightened suicide rates. However, compared with other health areas, mental health has received little research attention, particularly in the context of rural and regional communities that are often the ones most directly impacted by climate change. Our transdisciplinary research network is the first in Australia dedicated to addressing the interconnecting social, mental and emotional health impacts of climate change. Here we present an overview of our research network, including capabilities, objectives, activities, stakeholder engagement, and our current and planned projects aimed at building disaster resilience and risk reduction.

Rural and remote health workers across Australia have been challenged in the last two years more than any other time in recent history. Within this changing landscape, CRANAplus has been providing mental health and wellbeing services to the rural and remote health workforce and their families, including a free, confidential 24/7 telephone support line, mental health and wellbeing workshops, education and resources.
It became evident that health workers were exhausted and were finding it difficult to prioritise their own wellbeing. CRANAplus responded to this changing landscape by ensuring our tailored workshops were meeting these emerging needs, including messages about how to manage prolonged stress, avoid burnout and fatigue, manage vicarious trauma and prioritise their own wellbeing.
In keeping with this need to be flexible, the service utilizes whatever platform the local agency prefers. They have been delivered online at a shift handover, joining other professional development sessions or prerecording workshops for remote staff. Sessions have generally been for 30 minutes but can range from 20 minutes to 3 hours; as one-off sessions or as series of workshops over time. During this time, CRANAplus has delivered over 120 Wellbeing workshops to over 2200 rural and remote health workers.
In this changing landscape, we have been reminded of the importance of being flexible and responsive to workforce needs by providing short, practical sessions that allow this exhausted workforce the opportunity to check in with themselves and consider strategies to prioritise their own wellbeing.

SHaWS – A Multi-Disciplinary AOD, Mental Health and Primary Health Service in Southern NSW
The Sapphire Health and Wellbeing Service (SHaWS) is an innovative, cross-sector model of care providing holistic, integrated AOD, mental health and primary health services, and case management, to vulnerable community members with substance use concerns across the Bega Valley region in SE NSW.
With a coordinated, multi-disciplinary approach, services are delivered by AOD and mental health clinicians, Aboriginal health workers, GPs, nurses and allied health clinicians, working across NGO services, private practices and Aboriginal community-controlled organisations, in collaboration with Local Health District services.
This cross-sector innovation promotes a ‘no wrong door’ approach, where an individual with substance use concerns can access the SHaWS service through any facet of the consortium, undertake holistic assessment, and be treatment-matched with the intervention level and treatment components best suited to their needs. The stepped model of care allows the intensity of support to be stepped up or down, relative to the clients’ changing needs.
SHaWS recognises that AOD issues do not develop in isolation from other life circumstances and, therefore, cannot be addressed in isolation. Noting the frequent co-occurrence of AOD issues with other comorbidities, particularly mental health and primary health, SHaWS offers a suite of treatment options, offered concurrently, with flexible and intuitive integration of services. Of all SHaWS clients assessed, 70% had previously been diagnosed with a mental health issue. In the four weeks preceding assessment, 66% indicated experiencing mental health issues causing them problems at least weekly and 48% experienced physical health issues.
SHaWs aims to support individuals to address their AOD concerns and comorbid mental and physical health issues through engagement with an integrated service, and accessible through multi-faceted and supported pathways.

Unprocessed developmental trauma impacts underlie many of the 'mental health' diagnoses and challenges that real people face in the community every day.

We all know the effect is cumulative and chronic illness, lower social support, maladaptive coping strategies take a toll on the whole of life and community resources for impacted people.

I have developed 'Rewire 4 Life' as an interactive online resource providing psychoeduction, guided processes, personal reflection journalling and community sharing space. It is a self-directed learning experience for participants and a resource for therapists with additional training on trauma informed work.

The model is based around interpersonal neurobiology and polyvagal theory. It utilises somatic and sensory whole brain approaches for meeting and evolving looping trauma circuits. It utilises the community space to bring social benefits of a peer group learning 'trauma informed' together.

Designed for trauma impacted individuals, and both therapist and organisational capacity building.

I am currently in user testing stage and would love to share what I'm learning so far about what's working and not online - I'm sure there are others navigating this shift?

The program can program leading edge trauma healing support to communities often most affected by least resourced - training programs for Psychologists, Counsellors and Mental Health Professionals tend not to have scope to sufficiently cover this 'hard to help' but very possible to resource and heal client group.

Overview for health managers:
https://learn.heal-trauma.com/health-management

Overview for therapists:
https://learn.heal-trauma.com/health-professionals

Overview for individual:
https://learn.heal-trauma.com/rewire-4-life-individuals

Screen recording showing inside of app on phone:
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/730839931

Many people living in Far and Upper Western NSW are experiencing adverse impacts of drought and the unique hardships of living in a remote area, with negative consequences on mental health and wellbeing. While formal and clinical mental health services are available, accessing those can still be challenging for people due to distance, confidentiality, stigma and lack of awareness of what a mental health service can provide. People living in the service area are much more geographically dispersed and public awareness of mental health and wellbeing support is a growing need. The WGYB program utilises the power of peers to promote trust and reliability in linking people to mental health, wellbeing, drug and alcohol services.

Today I would like to present the We Are Men podcast funded by Country Health SA PHN I featured in recently.
This initiative is aimed to address the stigma associated with mental illness. My participation represented my experience of mental illness in rural Australia.
The podcast was designed to encourage men to seek early intervention with their mental health as well as to promote men to be empowered to discuss their mental health which can be a major barrier to them accessing appropriate support and treatment options.
This podcast aims to reduce the stigma around mental illness that affects so many men in our community.
I encourage other men to be able to speak to a friend who may be struggling and let them know they are not alone and offer support.
I highlighted the benefit of the medical model in managing my own mental illness, particularly with early intervention.
The lived experience model of care can be effective in all phases of the mental health journey from start to finish.
Nobody should have to travel this journey alone and I hope that sharing my lived experience can help others out there who struggle with their mental health.
My hope is that these types of good news stories will continue to be told and hopefully reduce stigma in the community, promote discussion and engender empathy with the ultimate aim of ensuring the consumer with mental illness can navigate the system feeling well supported and without anxiety of discrimination or being ostracised.

https://www.facebook.com/wearemenAU/videos/3328827637379427/?extid=NS-UNK-UNK-UNK-IOS_GK0T-GK1C-GK2C

The Rural Adversity Mental Health Program (RAMHP) is a state-wide program funded by NSW Ministry of Health and coordinated by Grand Pacific Health. Twenty coordinators in regional and rural NSW are employed to foster relationships within their community, identify individuals who require mental health support and help connect them to appropriate services, provide communities with mental health related information and upskill community members in mental health training. The program is designed as a soft-entry point to services for individuals who may not engage in traditional mental health treatment or who are hardly-reached by services, by providing an accessible RAMHP coordinator who engages individually, flexibly and outside of a clinical context.

Under the Rural Mental Health Partnership grant, The Peregrine Centre has been completing an evaluation of RAMHP services. The project has been focused on using research practices in an adaptive and flexible way to increase applicability to real world scenarios and accessibility to non-research health professionals. This has included understanding the evidence base behind services provided by RAMHP, and working collaboratively to develop a framework for RAMHP to assess the effectiveness of their interventions in a structured yet adaptable manner. The project has provided RAMHP with a menu of options for methods to evaluate their services and guidance on how to implement this, capitalising on the innovative nature of RAMHP and helping to bridge the gap between research and practice.

This poster will discuss the process of co-design of the evaluation framework with RAMHP and explore factors that impact translation of research into service delivery in regional and rural NSW. Key learnings include understanding how soft entry programs can be used flexibly to help regional and rural communities, the importance of collaboration and valuing of RAMHP coordinators expertise in their communities and the practicalities of adapting research into practice.

The Rural Adversity Mental Health Program (RAMHP) is a state-wide program funded by NSW Ministry of Health and coordinated by Grand Pacific Health. Twenty coordinators in regional and rural NSW are employed to foster relationships within their community, identify individuals who require mental health support and help connect them to appropriate services, provide communities with mental health related information and upskill community members in mental health training. The program is designed as a soft-entry point to services for individuals who may not engage in traditional mental health treatment or who are hardly-reached by services, by providing an accessible RAMHP coordinator who engages individually, flexibly and outside of a clinical context.

Under the Rural Mental Health Partnership grant, The Peregrine Centre has been completing an evaluation of RAMHP services. The project has been focused on using research practices in an adaptive and flexible way to increase applicability to real world scenarios and accessibility to non-research health professionals. This has included understanding the evidence base behind services provided by RAMHP, and working collaboratively to develop a framework for RAMHP to assess the effectiveness of their interventions in a structured yet adaptable manner. The project has provided RAMHP with a menu of options for methods to evaluate their services and guidance on how to implement this, capitalising on the innovative nature of RAMHP and helping to bridge the gap between research and practice.

This poster will discuss the process of co-design of the evaluation framework with RAMHP and explore factors that impact translation of research into service delivery in regional and rural NSW. Key learnings include understanding how soft entry programs can be used flexibly to help regional and rural communities, the importance of collaboration and valuing of RAMHP coordinators expertise in their communities and the practicalities of adapting research into practice.

There are many identified challenges and poorer health outcomes in rural communities. To address these, it is necessary to gain multifaceted information regarding their mental and physical health, and satisfaction with life. It is also necessary to map these to different locations and rurality levels, and to take account of sociodemographic factors. Additionally, it is necessary to understand communities’ perspectives on their facilitators and barriers to health care. This presentation will map the results of a multifaceted health study by rurality in Australia.
The Community Health and Rural/Remote Medicine (CHARM) Project commenced in 2020. The aim of this study is to gain an understanding of communities’ health needs, quality of life, satisfaction with life, substance use, exercise levels, access to health care and perceived strengths and challenges in the community. It also aimed to improve the collaboration between rural communities and the medical students from the Graduate School of Medicine, University of Wollongong. Online surveys were distributed through social media around Australia. There have been approximately 2300 participants recruited to date, the majority of which reside in outer regional and remote Australia (n=1546). This presentation will map the survey responses regarding substance use, satisfaction with life and access to mental health services by geographical location, rurality and other demographic variables.
Mapping multi-faceted health information by geographical location assisted in understanding complexities of health needs and perspectives by rurality and demographic variables. This method also allowed the identification of concerns in particular communities. Preliminary data analysis suggested that there is a greater concern regarding access to mental health services outside of metropolitan areas. This model demonstrated that it is useful to map complex health data on a geographic area to produce a usable overview on which future in-depth research studies and interventions can be based.

SHaWS – A Multi-Disciplinary AOD, Mental Health and Primary Health Service in Southern NSW
The Sapphire Health and Wellbeing Service (SHaWS) is an innovative, cross-sector model of care providing holistic, integrated AOD, mental health and primary health services, and case management, to vulnerable community members with substance use concerns across the Bega Valley region in SE NSW.
With a coordinated, multi-disciplinary approach, services are delivered by AOD and mental health clinicians, Aboriginal health workers, GPs, nurses and allied health clinicians, working across NGO services, private practices and Aboriginal community-controlled organisations, in collaboration with Local Health District services.
This cross-sector innovation promotes a ‘no wrong door’ approach, where an individual with substance use concerns can access the SHaWS service through any facet of the consortium, undertake holistic assessment, and be treatment-matched with the intervention level and treatment components best suited to their needs. The stepped model of care allows the intensity of support to be stepped up or down, relative to the clients’ changing needs.
SHaWS recognises that AOD issues do not develop in isolation from other life circumstances and, therefore, cannot be addressed in isolation. Noting the frequent co-occurrence of AOD issues with other comorbidities, particularly mental health and primary health, SHaWS offers a suite of treatment options, offered concurrently, with flexible and intuitive integration of services. Of all SHaWS clients assessed, 70% had previously been diagnosed with a mental health issue. In the four weeks preceding assessment, 66% indicated experiencing mental health issues causing them problems at least weekly and 48% experienced physical health issues.
SHaWs aims to support individuals to address their AOD concerns and comorbid mental and physical health issues through engagement with an integrated service, and accessible through multi-faceted and supported pathways.

The Rural Mental Health Partnership with NSW Health is intended to improve rural mental health practice through research and training. This presentation will outline the research and training initiatives undertaken in 2022 by the partnership to improve service design and delivery. It will also summarise the progress so far of the 2022-23 recipients of the Small Project Grants. The grants are focused on supporting implementation and scaling of innovative iniatives in rural mental health in NSW. The presentation will explain how researchers and frontline providers can partner to apply for up to $350,000 worth of Small Project Grants in Dec 2022-March 2023 for projects planned for 2023-24.