‘INCLUSIVE’ PLAN FOR MENTAL HEALTH TO BENEFIT LGBTI PEOPLE December the 20th, 2014. By Reg Domingo Source: GayNewsNetwork.au A ten-year strategic plan for addressing mental health in NSW that acknowledges and identifies the experience of the LGBTI community has been welcomed by LGBTI health advocates as ambitious and inclusive. ACON welcomed the release of the NSW Mental Health Commission’s 10-year blueprint, Living Well: A Strategic Plan for Mental Health in NSW 2014-2024. ACON CEO Nicolas Parkhill said it was a “clear, comprehensive and emphatic strategic plan”, which resulted from the commission consulting widely and extensively with LGBTI communities. The plan identifies mental health disparities in the LGBTI community such as increased suicide risk, higher rates of depression and anxiety and their relationship to experiences of homophobia and discrimination. LGBTI MENTAL HEALTH • LGBTI Australians are up to 14 times more likely to attempt suicide than people in the general community • Up to one third of LGBT Australians experience major depressive episodes, compared with just 7% of people in the general community. • LGBTI Australians are twice as likely to experience anxiety disorders as people in the general community and more than three times as likely to experience affective disorders such as depression and social phobias. Source: ACONs Strategic Plan 2013-18 Many of ACON’s key recommendations to the commission have been adopted into the plan. “This plan identifies and recommends a number of actions to be undertaken to ensure that services for LGBTI people are accessible, welcoming and appropriate,” Parkhill said. “Importantly it promotes policies, programs and research that are inclusive of our communities.” “We are also pleased to see a strong emphasis on building resilience and addressing some of the factors that lead to poorer mental health outcomes across the LGBTI community,” Parkhill said. “These actions and approaches support and endorse those outlined in ACONs Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2013 - 2018.” Coinciding with the plan’s launch in December, the NSW Government unveiled $115 million in new funding to a series of mental health initiatives. Parkhill said ACON “looks forward to working with the Commission, the NSW Government the LGBTI community over the next 10 years to improve mental health outcomes”. “We congratulate the Commission on this visionary and necessary approach to addressing the mental wellbeing needs of all people in NSW.”
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 11:36:05 +0000
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