Mental Health Consumer Special Interest Group: Call for members

Thank you for your interest - applications for the Mental Health SIG have now closed.

Background

• Are you a mental health consumer or carer of a mental health consumer with strong connections to your community?
• Are you, or have you been, a consumer representative/advocate in mental health care?
• Would you like to help shape and inform CHF policy and advocacy to improve mental health care for all consumers?

CHF Special Interest Groups

Special Interest Groups (SIGs) have been established to involve members and consumer representatives in shaping CHF’s policy and advocacy work.  SIGs make it possible to include greater consumer insight and perspective.

SIGs generally meet online once a month to advise the CHF Secretariat, with decisions on final positions and statements remaining with the CHF Board. Members generally have other opportunities to contribute too, for example, in focus groups and consultations on specific issues relevant to the group.

CHF currently has SIGs active in:

• Primary Health Care
• Research and Data
• Digital Health
• Safety and Quality in Healthcare
• Rural and Remote Health
• Youth Health Forum.

SIG membership is a volunteer activity; there are no sitting fees.

Establishing a new SIG

It is important to CHF’s policy and advocacy work to include the voices of mental health consumers and their carers. While CHF supports and collaborates with member and other organisations, including consumer bodies such as the National Mental Health Consumer and Carer Forum, a Mental Health Consumer SIG will complement these collaborations. The SIG will add a direct voice of lived experience that will routinely and authoritatively inform CHF policy and advocacy in mental health, and across all illnesses and medical conditions where mental health is a factor or comorbidity. For example, consumers living with pain and chronic conditions often experience anxiety, depression or other mental illness.

While SIG membership is generally open to all consumers, in setting up this SIG, we would like to make sure that there is diverse representation across mental health conditions and demographics (age, sex, location, first language, heritage), and that there is representation by both direct consumers and carers. For this reason, there will be a selection process and the founding members of the SIG will initially be appointed for 12 months.

Commitment by SIG members

You should be prepared to make the following commitments if you would like to express your interest in joining the SIG.

• You will need to be (mostly) available for a one hour afternoon (AEST) meeting at least once a month. Not everyone will be able to attend every meeting, but we ask that you don’t have regular daytime commitments that would prevent you from attending most of the meetings.
• Meetings will be conducted by Zoom, so you will need to have internet access, enough data, and be comfortable with the technology.
• You should be prepared to do some reading, and contribute to the work of the SIG and CHF, between meetings.

Applications

Applications are encouraged from people/carers with diverse mental health needs and backgrounds, including diverse levels of English language and literacy skills.

Thank you for your interst - applications have now closed.

Contact CHF Senior Policy Officer, Tammy Wolffs - email t.wolffs@chf.org.au with any questions.