Lived Experience Forum

[whitedog]

Hey there, I'm trying to find some national Australian services that are helpful. It could be a service for mental health, drug/alcohol recovery, suicide prevention, homelessness, etc... I want to find out if there is anything out there that I haven't heard of. 

[BlueBells]

Are you making a list, @whitedog ?

What have you got so far, if you are permitted to mention them.

[Isla]

Hi I'm sure others will have great suggestions but National health services directory of Australia is an online directory listing general GP's, psychs etc; Mental Illness Fellowship Australia is a support service for people with various MI. Services to support people with depression are Beyond Blue and Lifeline. Talking to someone on Lifeline can also be helpful as a source of 'go-to' services.

South Australia has Disability Services, I don't know if it's available in any other states. I know someone who had MI, mental illness, ie depression/anxiety and spoke to one person at one of there offices, to discuss a support person to help her through a particularly difficult time, ie attend doctors and job centre appointments with her. Initially she was turned away, being told her condition wasn't a disability. She tried a second time and spoke to a different person, at the same location, who assured her that depression/anxiety was definitely 'a disability' and was therefore able to access their services. I'm saying this as sometimes perseverance is needed and even people who work in support services sometimes need to be educated on what comprises 'disability'.

I'm sure others will suggest more places but I hope this helps you.

[Lunar]

Hi there @whitedog,

Not sure if you have heard of these already but national services include:

Counselling Online
1800 888 236 (Directline)
www.counsellingonline.org.au 
Available 24 hours a day, seven days a week

Counselling Online is a service where anyone seeking help or information about alcohol or drug related issues can access a professional counsellor 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, free of charge, across Australia. Counselling Online provides live, one to one text-based counselling. The counsellors work from the individual's identified needs, offering assessment, counselling, referral and information that will respect your ability to make informed choices for yourself.

Family Drug Support
1300 368 186 (Nat)
24 hours 7 days a week
www.fds.org.au 
Supporting families affected by alcohol and other drugs in Australia.

 GROW

1800 558 268 (national)
9-4 Mon-Fri
national@grow.org.au 
www.grow.org.au/ 
Grow is a community-based organisation assisting Australians recover from mental illness through a unique program of mutual support and personal development via support services.

Just a few to start with, is it for any particular mental health issue?

Lunar 🙂

[NikNik]

Hi @whitedog

For your reference, we have some Service Spotlights on six Forum partners, which are:

Mental Health Carers TAS

Helping Minds

Mind Australia

Ozhelp

Mental Illness Fellowship Nth QLD

Mental Illness Fellowship NT

So while most of these are geographically specific, they all have an equivalent in at least each state - if not local communities. 

Hope this helps 🙂

[whitedog]

@Isla Thanks for your reply. The national health services directory looks really good. It has an app too that can be used. 

I agree with what you say about perseverence. It's a shame that there isn't consistency with many services. 😞 

[whitedog]

@BlueBells I'm kindof making a list. I'm looking for services that I don't know of that may be really good. I'm really after any services that someone has had a good experience with. 

e.g. someone may have used the suicide call back service and found that it was very helpful, or someone may have gone to a SMART recovery meeting to get help while dealing with an addiction. There are great semi-national services out there that people haven't heard of. I'm trying to find some of those great services. 

[whitedog]

Thanks @Lunar

I haven't heard of any of those. Are they any good? There are many services out there and it can be heartbreaking for people to trial and error them. 

I like the look of the counselling online 24/7 chat. If it's a consistent service, it may be really good. I also like the grow community one. I'll check that out as well. The family drug support one looks good. I often hear people talk about Al Anon Family Groups, but more support is sometimes needed. 

It can be for any mental health issue. My main interest is whether the service is good from a customer's perspective. There are so many services out there, but some of them can be very dodgy. I want to find some hidden gems out there. 

I would like to check out IMAlive crisis support as it is 24/7 online chat. It's a global crisis support chat service, but may be very helpful depending on how they run their service. 

[whitedog]

@NikNik

thanks for that list of spotlight services. I'll check them out now. Sometimes there can be services that are not national but still cover a large area. e.g. a service with satellite outposts for rural areas. I would like to learn about some of these. I'm interested in finding more Aboriginal services as I've noticed some of these can come and go quickly. I also would like to look into Men in Sheds groups to see if any of those are any good. 

[whitedog]

@Isla

I've been checking out the National Health Services Directory. It is fairly good. I tested it out with local services. It's able to find stuff like GPs, psychs, and counsellors. This is good, but when I tried to find addiction services, the search engine found near to nothing. This isn't good because I know that there are tons of addiction services in my local area. In my area there are rehab units, recovery programs, massive one stop shop addiction services, group sessions, programs run under the hostpital, etc... I hope they fix this because otherwise it seems like a good app. 

And on apps, I like the fact that SANE  forums has an app. I think this is a good direction to take. However, the app has many bugs at the moment and is difficult to use. It switches between webpage view and app view throughout use. But if this could be fixed, it would be an awesome app.