Questions and Comments
• In the late 80s and 90s there was a move from institutionalisation to care and treatment in the community. Why is our engagement in the community so small? Are we concentrating our work / engagement in inpatient units, clinics, CCUs etc. rather than being based where people live? Part of the reason for this is that consumer consultants are individual workers in specific roles.
• A place like XXX has 1,000 consumers and 44 acute beds. Most people don’t spend much of their real lives in hospital. How can consumer consultants substantially engage and spend time with people in the community and represent the interests of the substantial majority of people who use mental health services?
• From a historical perspective the concentration of time spent by consumer consultants in acute settings comes from a time when that was felt to be the hardest place to be. Work in the community requires different resources and roles (e.g. outreach and support; peer support).
• It was asked if statistics could be sought about how much peer support is going on.
• There is a need for new services (e.g. a consumer-run phone service / help line). Some initiatives could be done within the consumer movement but not necessarily with consumer consultants.
• When engaging the community it is important to look at what is already in existence. The VMIAC could commence a program for a project worker to set up a community connections type project.
• PDRSs are partly community-based. It is important to build partnerships with service providers.
• It is important to have a job description and make concrete what consumer consultants are supposed to do and how they are supposed to do it, then talk to DHS about funding more positions to carry this outdo what needs to be done. People should be paid for what they do. If this is not done consumer consultant’s roles will continue to expand.
• A variety of non-consumer consultant roles need to be developed because all consumer consultants find it difficult to say no to requests from consumers (e.g. admin, some advocacy).
• It would be interesting to investigate how consumer consultants are spending the extra hours they indicated in the survey and how this time could be better utilised by delegation etc.
• Consumer consultants’ roles should be shared roles. The best way to railroad the job is for the consumer consultants to only be able to talk and interact with clinicians. They need to talk with other consumers.
• The Info officer role with the information line is important as requests from other consumer consultants help people to feel connected. The VMIAC Forum
www.forum.vmiac.com.au is a web forum for the exchange information and views.
• In relation to line management, we need to advocate that consumer workers are managed by consumer workers and not by clinical staff. A career structure needs to be in place, with the budget managed by a consumer manager.
• The DHS contribution for consumer consultants is about $35,000 per adult service. Recently $10,000 was allocated per area health service to improve communication for consumer and carer consultants. Consumer consultants were encouraged to ask how this funding had been spent and it was noted that it was capital funding and so not subject to end of financial year considerations.
• In at least one service where consumer consultants are part of executive meetings, any discussions of finances goes to a managerial meeting where consumer consultants are not present.
• One consumer consultant asked a new Executive Director if he could take over managing the consumer consultant budget and this was approved. Now any surplus funding and be spent necessary projects.
• Consumer consultants with 10 years experience receive the same wage as new staff. Measurable tools are needed to introduce structured payment schedules.
• If all consumer consultants say no to extra hours systemic change may happen. Much of what consumer consultants do is good because of their diversity. We don’t want everyone to have the same job description. We need to cherish diversity and consider things like year increments.
• It was noted that DHS has said they can’t become involved in issues of work and conditions, they can only make recommendations to management. The only way is to have a career path written and this required union involvement. To organise a pay claim requires a significant number of position descriptions.
• We could invite some of the militant unions (e.g. CEMIFU) to give advice about how to articulate consumer consultant roles and prove how valuable the role is. HACSU in many ways opposed to us being recognised because we are in competition for some of the health budget. We need to ask people how we can mount a relevant pay claim and work out which union we affiliate with. We need to use union tactics to make the consumer consultant job better and have in place a career structure and an award.
