Mental Health Services
Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: I ask a question without notice of the Minister for Community Services, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability Services, and Minister for Youth. Is it a fact that a number of persons with mental illness live on the streets due to a lack of Government-funded mental hospitals and hostels, and a shortage of boarding houses and supported accommodation? Is it a fact that non-government organisations are seeing a dramatic rise in the number of homeless people who have mental ill-health and who have been uprooted due to the closure of mental health facilities and inadequate community services? Will the Minister please explain what action the New South Wales Government is taking to address the crisis in deteriorating mental health services, in particular the shrinking number of community-based accommodation services and its direct relationship to the closure of this State’s large psychiatric hospitals which has left no alternative for the mentally ill other than to live on the streets?
The Hon. CARMEL TEBBUTT: I thank Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes for a very good question. I will provide some information about the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program [SAAP], which is a joint Commonwealth-State program that is part of my responsibility, and I will also refer his question to the Minister for Health in the other House because in many ways some of the issues he has raised fall within the Health portfolio, particularly the honourable member’s interest in services for people who have a mental illness. SAAP is currently part of the Department of Community Services [DOCS] early intervention work that aims to support families and, when possible, help them stay together. It provides a range of services. I do not think I need to go into those because I know Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes is only too familiar with them.
In terms of the goals of the department, DOCS is currently working to address homelessness by improving case management for clients to ensure that homeless people are supported in a way that best meets their needs and that they are referred to the most appropriate service. The department is commissioning the development of standards in conjunction with the industry, continuing the SAAP training program, and is working with community partners to improve the flexibility and responsiveness of SAAP services with particular emphasis on working with other stakeholders such as New South Wales Health to improve services for clients with high or complex needs, such as the ones referred to by Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes. The department is also focusing on improving the way in which all relevant services work together at a regional level to improve services for clients.
Joint working relationships with health and housing services are critical to achieving better results. The department is also implementing the SAAP services framework and is developing a web site to provide a whole lot of detailed information. The Government recognises that homelessness is not the sole responsibility of SAAP services and has ensured an across-government response through the Partnership Against Homeless Committee, for which the lead agency is the Department of Housing, among a range of other Government agencies represented in that partnership. To better integrate the wide range of services that are needed by unsupported young homeless people, DOCS has launched the revised DOCS-Centrelink youth case management protocol between Commonwealth agencies and State and Territory welfare authorities for unsupported young people. As I stated, I will refer the honourable member’s question to the Minister for Health to obtain some more detailed information about some of the issues he has raised.
