Newsletter # 1 Politics in Mind
Image of brain on the left with “politics in mind” on the right it states “A fortnightly newsletter on developments, advocacy and research on mental health, distress, neurodiversity and madness”.
Welcome to the first edition of Politics in Mind: A Lived Experience Newsletter. The purpose of this fortnightly newsletter is to provide you with critical perspectives on developments, advocacy and research on mental health, distress, neurodiversity and madness.
If you like it, please forward the website (simonkatterlconsulting.com) to colleagues, comrades, friends and family (they can sign up on the home page). If you have feedback, please email me at simon@simonkatterlconsulting.com.
What I’ve been up to
In recent months I’ve been very busy. I’ve been collaborating on a range of projects. These include:
Handed in a large piece of work for the Mental Health and Wellbeing Division (Department of Health) - done in partnership with Kerin Leonard from Lionheart Consulting Australia - on how the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 can and should enhance policy and stewardship processes of the mental health system by the Victorian Government (available publicly soon)
Along with Flick Grey, Kate Swaffer, A/Prof Linda Steele, and Prof Penelope Weller, made a submission to Tasmania’s OPCAT implementation process, and a very brief and rough submission on the Discussion Paper on the Elimination of Seclusion and Restraint
Some great interviews with Aimee Sinclair (on psychiatrisation and peer work), Muriel Cummins (on the issues with Supported Residential Services), and Jo Szczepanska (on co-design and faux-design).
Ongoing work for the Independent Review into Compulsory Treatment laws
It’s a little bit old news, but I would encourage you to check out an online e-learning module I did with the Centre for Mental Health Learning earlier this year on Mental Health Policy and Consumer Perspectives.
The most significant piece of news was the release of Not Before Time: Lived Experience-Led Justice and Repair.
Not Before Time
The report - a genuine world-first - was a collaboration between myself, six co-authors (Caroline Lambert, Chris MacBean, Flick Grey, Lorna Downes, Morgan Cataldo, Katrina Clarke, Sharon Williams), and two independent facilitators (Tim Heffernan and Kerry Hawkins). Both VMIAC and Tandem have been involved throughout. The report was been read over 5000 times, been covered in the ABC (print, radio, podcasts, TV), the Guardian, other outlets, while also being raised at several organisations and in forums such as the United Nations. Please take the time to read it and share - including our recent Guardian Opinion piece - if you haven’t already. Many thanks to those that have supported the report in different ways.
Going to Court with the MHCC
The other piece of news is that, unfortunately, I will be going to court. In May this year the Mental Health Complaints Commission (MHCC) lost a year-long battle over the release of the recommendations they make to mental health services. This came after the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner (OVIC) found in my favour after I appealed a decision by the MHCC to refuse release of this data. Unfortunately, the MHCC has hired external legal counsel (in addition to the in-house legal counsel it has already used, at what cost?) to appeal that decision to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. The issue has been raised in Parliament and we are awaiting the Minister’s response. Much more to come on this story. Update (12 July 2023): https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/12/victorias-mental-health-watchdog-criticised-after-fighting-release-of-secret-recommendations
Observations and reflections
The accepted reality amongst many in the mental health sector is that the reforms are not going well. This much was clear in the recent and excellent Woodcock Lecture by Matt Ball and Helena Roenfeldt, hosted by Wellways. While the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System spoke of a new road, many (myself included) wonder whether are headed in circles. Just like the earth’s size tricks our eyes into disbelieving the earth’s curvature, so too can our busy-ness, personal career advancement and influx of funding create the illusion that we are part of something different.
I’ve made no secret of my disappointment about the continuation of the MHCC into the new Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission. Already underperforming, their job will become harder, and more critical. The new Commission will need to hold both the sector and the government accountable, while also bringing together the rest of the sector around issues of common interest, and of dispute. To do that, it will need to grapple with it’s past and current failures.
A great deal of trauma appears to be washing over the system. I’ve certainly felt mine. Reform periods are often the worst for those looking for, and attempting to participate in, change. Reform periods extract knowledge, trauma and hope with promises of a better future. I see, hear and feel in others the toll of this process.
As a sector we are feeling the consequences of both the repression (unconscious) and suppression (conscious) of true sociopolitical underpinnings of our failing mental health system. A system that has at it’s heart a belief in dangerousness of people in distress, that they/we are less-than, and that this should be reflected in the human rights, wages, workplace rights and social status granted to them/us. Until these truths are excavated, explored and displayed - rather than denied - we will be facing profound resistance to change.
That doesn’t mean there will not be pockets of change. I am fortunate to see leadership of people with lived experience across the reform landscape. The Lived Experience Residential Service being developed by Mind (which I have a very minor advisory role on: disclosure) is one such example. I am seeing incredible work coming out of South Australia with the creation of a Lived Experience Governance Framework (not yet finalised), which fills my heart. The emergence of an Alt2Su group in Victoria is something that we should all actively celebrate and support, as well as the ongoing success of the International Mad Studies Journal. Without leadership from the major levers like the new Commission or Ministerial leadership (noting the fledgling National Mental Health Commission too), we will not see systems-wide, enduring, and sustainable change.
Sector announcements & opportunities
There have been some big announcements recently. As always, this reflects my areas of preoccupation and concern.
The most prominent announcement from a human rights perspective has been the nomination of Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA) (situated within Victoria Legal Aid, VLA) as the primary non-legal advocacy provider across the state. I have mixed feelings about this as someone who worked at the organisation for several years and who has close relationships with many in the organisation. On the one hand, as a service-provider, it has been a true positive outlier in a pretty messy and damaging system, illustrated by it’s evaluation and by the evidence of those who spoke to the Royal Commission. For years while I was working there, and still today, there are advocates, senior advocates, senior consumer lived experience staff and managers driven by a concern for social justice. This work is often invisibilised by a system that controls information and locked wards. Their nomination speaks to the quality of their service.
On the other hand, and less discussed, VLA has failed to publicly pursue the failings in the system and in particular the gross human rights violations occurring and the lack of enforcement by key regulatory bodies and tribunals. While it has been outspoken in other areas of social policy like bail reform, drug law reform, raise the age, and Robodebt, the only occasions VLA or IMHA has spoken to media in recent years on mental health has been around the need for IMHA to gain additional funding and the creation of opt-out advocacy. While it has been successful in this respect, all of the key levers for change that are failing - and that it could have sufficiently shone a light on in this time - remain largely undisturbed. As the organisation with the greatest legal expertise and funding, it has a duty to highlight these failures. These concerns are regularly surfaced but unaddressed (reminder that my public interventions only come after years of private advocacy). For the sake of the incoming mass of advocates to manage increased demand, and most importantly mental health consumers, I hope that there is reflection and the possibility of change. I believe this is an important conversation to surface publicly after years of quiet negotiation, but I will do so in a more fulsome way later (VLA was provided the opportunity to respond in this case and I will do so again in the future).
Other recent news that I’ve been made aware of includes:
The Victorian Chief Psychiatrist’s jurisdiction is expanding to monitor chemical restraint, which extends doing-nothing to another area of the mental health system
Submissions on the Discussion Paper on the Elimination of Seclusion and Restraint are open until 21 July
IMHA has a consumer consultant opportunity to support the senior consumer consultant
VMIAC has an opportunity for a role providing consumers information on the new Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022
The Australian Psychosocial Alliance made a submission to the NDIS Review (disclosure: I’ll be doing some work for them), with the NDIS Review releasing it’s interim report recently.
I’m also waiting to see who the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing select as their partner organisations, and on the release of the final National Stigma and Discrimination Reduction Strategy by the National Mental Health Commission.
Things I’ve been reading, watching and mulling over
A disturbing politicisation of gender-affirming care by some marginal psychiatrists, read in solidarity with trans and gender diverse folks
An interesting Guardian piece on anxiety in young people
“Poverty is a collective choice” - a reality that we must all face up to if we want to address it and it’s emotional and human toll in the wake of the Robodebt Royal Commission
A bombshell report on questionable funding and evidence for a PwC strategy, a new mental health app by InnoWell and the various industry connections
Efforts by the Commonwealth Government to limit who is eligible for the NDIS if they have a psychosocial disability (I’ll have more to say on this at a later date)
A good critical examination of the new Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022
If you think we can address mental distress and trauma without addressing gambling reform, you’re kidding yourself, and here is an excellent piece on as yet largely unactioned recommendations to the Commonwealth Government to make change.
Please give me feedback on the newsletter!
Politics in Mind is meant to help curate information that is useful to you, provide my perspective on reforms particularly within Victoria. I would dearly appreciate your feedback via simon@simonkatterlconsulting.com. I’ll try to include content you send me (that I can get the chance to read).
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