Consumer Workforce workshop feedback for discussion and comment

Discussion facilitated by Cath Roper & Wanda Bennetts – 4.9.07

Question 1: Training
• Should we provide training for the consumer workforce?
• If so, should it be based on competencies or some other framework?
• Who should provide the training?
• What should it look like?

Key words & concepts:
• Yes – initial course & then develop streams + opportunities to up skill
• Tailored to individuals work requirements
• Peer support & supportive network to ensure individual welfare
• CC to look after themselves
• Consumer based, focussed & consumer developed competencies
• Subsidies & scholarships
• Is role part of rehab for person in role?
• Training for CCs & cons reps
• Both need skills
• Should be some pre vocational training
• Need for govt. support & funding
• Employee role is different form cons role
• Should be competency based
• Balance B/n needs as a cons vs. needs for role
• TAFE, Cert iv, Health Issues Centre, University, MIF, VMIAC, DHS CPN
• Training vs. professional development
• Minimum enrollments needed to sustain course
• Distance learning?
• Open only to consumers or more widely?
• TAFE course can be difficult – attitudes
• Cons. Workers educators as deliverers of course
• Is this acceptable as positive discrimination for cons.
• It should have core principles as cons. Work
• Refresher training advocacy individual & systemic, action research, peer support, complaints work, overview of health system, history of cons. Movement
• Clusters
• Focus on skills – facilitation skills, public speaking skills, optional units eg. Group work (reference NSW code of conduct?)
• Discussion of working issues, realistic view of role
• Training to fit job descriptions
• HR processes
• R&R
• Self care
• Incident debriefing
• Supervision
• Professional boundaries

Question 2: Consumer Perspective Principles
• What are our distinctive consumer ways of working? (eg. capacity building, that we value expertise as well as experience etc, honesty,)
• What resources do we need to abide by these principles?
• What changes do our workplaces need to make so that we can practice according to our principles?

Key words & concepts:
• Consumers have unique knowledge i.e. The lived experience
• Experience can’t be learned
• Consumer role should not be regarded as tokenistic
• What does offering a consumer service entail? (is ti cynosure focused or consumer delivered service?)
• Listen, inclusive
• Consumer friendly spaces
• Feeling of comradeship
• Empowerment vs. doing for or to
• Consumer participation within our organisations
• Self advocate
• Cherish diversity
• Each person is their own expert
• A CP policy
• Consumers on all levels of management – eg. Hierarchy
• Consumers as managers
• Our own space
• Sufficient time to work collaboratively
• Does Hierarchical system work with a consumer organisation?
• Equality in paid roles
• Increased respect form peers (work peers?)
• Need to have proper supports, i.e. independent supervision
• Working in a team
• Consumer mentors
• Consumer ways of working
• The journey to recovery
• Concept of equal communication level
• Level playing field
• Role model
• Hope
• Mentoring
• Respecting professional roles – team work
• Empathy on reality
• Honesty
• Respect
• Non judgemental
• Trust
• Resources
• Nationals program
• Access to resources
• Funding
• Volunteer program
• Acknowledging the workers experience
• Community involvement
• Collaboration b/n services – hospitals, community, D & A, NGOs
• We must be the change we wish to see in the world
• Not tokenistic,
• Peer support
• Training
• Government recognition

Question 3: Expertise
• What categories of specific & unique expertise do we have? (peer support, training, research)
• How do we acquire specialised expertise & from where?
• Does the expertise we need actually exist?

Key words *& concepts:
• Life & professional
• Lived experience of MI & a lived life
• Peer support
• Motivator
• Inspirational
• One on one counselling
• Use of ‘career skills’
• As an educator
• Offer hope
• As a role model
• Success of the lived experience stories
• Influential individuals – celebrities/media
• Looking past the symptoms to the individual
• Individual skills & life experience
• You’ve got to bring in skills to the job
• Not just lived experience to be able to be a peer support worker so it isn’t tokenistic
• How & from where?
• Encourage people – use the celebrity status
• Do we have levels of expertise? i.e level of skills & knowledge
• Roles – training, PS, consultants, recovery guides,
• Processes in place to get right people for the right job
• Code of ethics= credibility

Key words & concepts:
• We need a different way of doing things

Question 4: Capacity Building
• If we are about capacity building. How do we find the resources to do this?
• What are the tensions around payment/ non-payment?
• Is apprenticeship possible and what could that look like?

Key words & concepts:
• More than financial, a range of experience
• Skills – being able to mentor
• Working together
• Being able to smooth the path
• Dissolve the us & them mentality & practice
• Supporting people
• Confidence
• Strength – drawing on strengths & not weaknesses
• Having an opinion
• Skill & in knowing the culture
• Being able to meet & talk with decision makers on an equal level
• Valid CP
• Strong consumer input
• Staying for actions
• Support needs to some degree
• No tokenism
• A real structure
• Both personal & system capacity
• Need for communication with management
• Resources – paid & unpaid work
• Individual consultancy’
• Centrelink
• Negotiation skills
• The kit
• Volunteering
• Different in different states
• Needing more paid work
• Uniform wage for Victoria & Australia
• Higher wages
• Consumers as skilled workers
• Apprenticeship is possible
• Could happen with National input
• Adds to wages with support
• Works well for cert IV & lower tertiary qualifications through TAFE or PDRSS services
•

Question 5: Career Paths
• Should we have career paths for the consumer workforce?
• What should career paths look like?

Key words & concepts:
• Yes with some form of peer review
• Expectation that consumers should seek training & education
• Credibility/legitimacy
• Equality
• Consumers add value in staying well
• Specialised arenas
• Not to be seen as career consumer
• Consumers have key skills
• Expanding consolidating skills in other areas
• {Professionalism
• Flexibility
• Recovery focused – Madness is no longer enough
• Look like?
• Quality, flexible
• Scholarships & incentives
• Peak bodies
• Equal pay for equal work

Question 6: Leadership
• Are we actually making enough use of our leaders?
• How do we define our leadership roles?
• Who are our leaders and how do we choose them?

Key words & concepts:
• How do we define it?
• Qualities, skills & capabilities
• Should have a vision
• What are the responsibilities?
• Situational leadership
• Person may need a certain skill set for their job
• A leader in certain circumstances will need to have a broader knowledge & perspective i.e. to work with government etc.
• Leaders need to be approachable
• Need it to take others with them
• Anticipate what will happen with the group
• Power – share power with the group
• Motivating others
• Actions speak louder than words
• Look outside the box
• A good leader needs to be a good follower
• Recognises others people’s skills & utilises them
• A passion & understating of the MH sector
• A good leader supports people so they can be independent
• The leader can leave & the organisation can survive
• The leader may not be the manager, but the manager has the responsibility, but is not necessarily the leader
• You may choose leader whom we admire & who we may choose as mentors
• They need to be congruent – talk their talk
• Qualities – courage, charisma, perseverance
• Often we choose to follow a leader whom we connect with
• They will have a public profile of some sort
• There are many levels of recognition of leadership
• Are we making enough use of our leaders? – no
• We need to resource leaders
• We need to look within our own country at the potential we have & harness it