NWPHN

North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network

This is a collaboration between Pola Practice and North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network (NWMPHN) that is piloting the delivery of a culturally responsive training and supervision program with a select group of CAREinMIND clinicians. The intention is to understand how the program improves clinicians’ confidence and capability to deliver culturally responsive care.

NWMPHN has one of the most culturally diverse regions in Australia, and it is important that access to services, including mental health services, caters to the various needs of consumers. In a recent Mental Health Health Needs Assessment conducted by NWMPHN, some culturally diverse communities highlighted they can experience challenges accessing mental health care due to stigma, a perceived lack of competency or sensitivity of mainstream services to work with cultural needs, and/or a previous poor experience. This is also supported by literature, finding multicultural consumers experiencing mental ill health often encounter marginalisation and stigmatisation associated with poor mental health or a mental diagnosis and the access and utilisation of services.

These findings highlight the importance to understand what:

  • an effective culturally responsive mental health assessment and referral process looks like to enable safe and responsive access for consumers; and

  • the need to understand the best approach to enhancing the skills of mental health practitioners to work effectively and safely with consumers

North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network has partnered with Pola Practice (as experts in culturally responsive practice) to deliver 2 key activities:

  1. Implementation of the Initial Assessment and Referral Decision Support Tool within their Culturally Responsive Intake Process; and

  2. To co-design and deliver a culturally responsive training and supervision program.

Let’s get to know our Partner: NWPHN

What is a Primary Health Network?

Primary Health Networks (PHNs) assess the health care needs of their community and commission health services to meet those needs, minimising gaps or duplication. They support health services to connect with each other to improve people’s care and strengthen the primary health care system.

PHNs were established by the Australian Government as independent organisations that manage health regions. There are 31 PHNs across Australia, 6 of which cover Victoria.

What do they do?

NWMPHN works closely with general practices, mental health, allied health and other primary health care professionals to identify service gaps. They then collaborate to co-design and fund innovative and effective solutions that make it easier for people to get the care they need.

With a focus on vulnerable members of the community, PHNs are driven by a vision for a primary care system that is person-centred, comprehensive, coordinated, accessible, high quality and safe.

Key Objectives of the Pilot

  • Initial Assessment and Referral Decision Tool

    To test delivery of the Initial Assessment and Referral Decision Tool (IAR-DST) in a multicultural intake setting to understand considerations and nuances for applying the tool with culturally diverse people to support continuous quality improvement learnings in the NWMPHN referral and access process.

  • Referral

    Through the use of the IAR-DST, with a selected cohort of multicultural consumers, support the referral and readiness of consumers to appropriate mainstream services (including PHN commissioned services)

  • Training

    To design and deliver a training package for commissioned mental health service providers that improves provider capability and confidence to deliver culturally responsive care (through structured psychological therapies)

  • Service Delivery

    To understand the effectiveness of the training in enabling clinicians to modify their psychological service delivery and the impact on the consumer's care experience.

  • Scaling

    To determine the suitability of the training for potential scaling to other commissioned mental health service providers.