Excellence in Mental Health and Wellbeing

Excellence in

Mental Health & Wellbeing

CAA welcomes the introduction of this new category in 2021. With mental health in our patients and our staff such a prominent focus in the field of paramedicine in the past decade, we are seeing exciting innovation and excellence by all. Each service is encouraged to continue to shine in this field and share with us their innovation and improvements in mental health and wellbeing.

Sponsored by

Excellence in Mental Health and Wellbeing Responding to staff welfare during major incidents

SA Ambulance Service

Team: Chris Howie (team leader)

Managing the psychological health and well-being of staff is a complex and multi-faceted issue, further exacerbated during times of major incident. The unique challenges presented through both the 2019/20 bushfires and COVID-19 allowed for the refinement of SA Ambulance Service’s (SAAS) psychological support provision in major incidents, with particular focus on proactivity, accessibility and identification of staff across the entire organisation. This enhancement of the staff wellbeing response has allowed for earlier identification of the psychological needs of the workforce, and the provision of targeted support in a timely and structured manner. Procedural development to inform and support the psychological response through major incidents further enhances these services being delivered consistently and effectively to all staff potentially or actually, impacted by such events.

The psychological support response throughout these aforementioned incidents surpassed any previous welfare response seen within SAAS, with staff engaged and supported at all levels of the organisation. This all-encompassing response ensured no member of the SAAS family, career or volunteer, operational or support staff – was left to endure these incidents alone. Within any major incident, the potential psychological impact – both professionally and personally - upon our workforce has the capacity to be varied and widespread. SAAS needed to ensure that any response was agile and sustainable. Although staff wellbeing in time of major incident has always encompassed part of our organisational response, the focus throughout these incidents needed to be both magnified and targeted, as these incidents were potentially more likely to have a greater personal impact on multiple staff than we may have experienced previously.

The unprecedented nature of COVID-19 and the widespread devastation of the 2019-20 bushfires created the situation in which the importance of early help seeking, proactive support and the overall awareness and promotion of mental health and wellbeing was both necessary and vital information, whilst also ensuring that the importance of staff psychological wellbeing was both conveyed and experienced fairly by all across the organisation. The SAAS Staff Wellness & Assistance team determined that a standard response would not meet the diverse needs of our workforce. These events would have a profound influence on many of our staff, immediately after the event and into the intermediate and long-term future, and our response could help shape how people recovered.

Excellence in Mental Health and Wellbeing AV Peer Support Dog Program

Ambulance Victoria

Team: Gina Mammone, Senior Manager Peer and Pastoral Care (team leader), Jo Costa, Bernice James, Ken Whittle, Lisa Nixon, Angela Ewing, Emily Jackson, and Tracey Barling Ambulance Victoria (AV) is committed to improving the mental health and wellbeing of its workforce. In 2018 as part of that commitment, AV trialed the incorporation of support dogs into staff wellbeing support structures, the first trial of its kind in any emergency services agency in Australia.

The first Peer Support Dog in the metropolitan led pilot was Bruce the Labrador who was introduced to AV in May 2018. During the pilot’s six-month period, the research overwhelmingly demonstrated that Bruce had a positive and meaningful impactful in how this alternate means of support provision was received by the workforce.

In 2019 due to the success of the pilot and the overwhelming positive feedback, the Peer Support Dog Pilot transformed to a Program and expanded to regional and rural Victoria. A further 11 Peer Support Dogs and their handlers were recruited from across Victoria in what is now a well-established and embedded state-wide Peer Support Dog Program. The aim of having Peer Support Dogs in the workplace include:

• Decrease in stigma surrounding help-seeking behaviour.

• An increased awareness of mental health matters

• To increase information on, and utilisation of, wellbeing and support services on offer e.g., such as

Peer Support, Pastoral Care and Psychology services. • Improve employee satisfaction regarding the organisations commitment to improve the mental health and wellbeing of our workforce. • Reduce the occurrence of occupational stress

• Encourage conversations around wellbeing as part of a normal workplace culture

• Provide a contemporary and innovative approach to wellbeing and support services • Ensure equitable access to wellbeing and support services across the workforce, recognising inconsistent access aligned to length of service reflective of stigma associated issues in some parts of the organisation. Petting a dog contributes to the healing process and helps break down barriers to seeking assistance. The expansion of the Peer Support Dog Program has allowed the benefits of the program to reach more of our workforce across Victoria.

Excellence in Mental Health and Wellbeing NSW Ambulance Wellbeing Workshop Program

NSW Ambulance Service

Team: Philippa Furey, Hale Can, Mary Wayumba, Tricia Mawson, Megan Kingham, Zoe Wooldridge, Anita Alexander, Claire Hately, Emma Ugarte, Chloe Larcombe, Richard High, Nam Le, Sam Stack, Lucas Combes, Michal Marszalek, Sally Stoyles, Paul Sinclair, Elizabeth Simeoli, and Philippa Woolf and team.

The NSW Ambulance Wellbeing Workshop is a dedicated development program designed to support the mental and physical health of all our employees. The objective of the workshop is to provide Paramedics, Call Takers, and nonoperational staff with simple yet powerful strategies and skills that may be implemented in their lives for an enhanced degree of health, safety, self-awareness, wellbeing and quality of life. Participants are encouraged to share their learnings with their families, friends and support networks as NSW Ambulance recognises the importance of these partnerships.

The Workshop is presented over three days for operational staff and one and a quarter day for nonoperational staff. The Workshop is divided into three key areas: Well at Work, Safe at Work and Protected at Work. The program was designed to deliver a cohesive package of foundational knowledge, strategies and tools for operational and nonoperational staff when managing their wellbeing; mental health and resilience, physical health, managing personal safety and risk, and occupational violence prevention. The overarching aims of the program are: • Develop all NSW Ambulance staff to be positive and resilient, engaged and empowered by their work. • Develop staff to find meaning and accomplishment through what they do, have strong relationships both at work and home and utilise practical tools to embed health and wellbeing in the culture of NSW

Ambulance.

• Improve skills, knowledge and capabilities in health and wellbeing and to address key organisational risks associated with working in an emergency service. • Ensure employees and their families have access to quality health and wellbeing information • Raise awareness of NSW Ambulance support services and programs and promote positive attitudes to help seeking • Build and foster relationships within the NSW

Ambulance staff community.

Excellence in Mental Health and Wellbeing SAAS Mental Health Co-Response (MH CORE)

SA Ambulance Service

CATEGORY WINNER

Team: Nicola Medlycott, Operations Manager, Non Emergency Services (team leader) Mental Health Co-Response (MH CORE) is a South Australian initiative that partners SA Ambulance Service paramedics with mental health professionals.

MH CORE crews consist of a paramedic and a mental health clinician, and are tasked by SAAS to respond to low-medium acuity mental health calls to Triple Zero (000). These include people experiencing self-harm, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, depression, exacerbation of a mental health issue or a situational crisis.

MH CORE is successfully helping three-quarters of patients to avoid emergency department presentations, where previously almost all of these people would have been taken to an ED.

MH CORE is:

• Improving patients’ access to mental health services that provide more appropriate care and ongoing support in the community

• Avoiding the additional mental distress of an ED presentation

• Supporting ambulance staff in managing mental health cases

• Keeping more ambulance resources available for emergencies MH CORE is a collaboration between SAAS and major Adelaide local health networks. After a 2019 pilot and a trial in the central Adelaide catchment in 2020, MH CORE was expanded in 2021 to cover more of the metropolitan area and increased to a seven-day service with longer operating hours. The objectives of MH CORE were to: • Develop a more sustainable service delivery model for the ever-increasing number of mental health patients seeking help via Triple Zero (000) • Provide mental health patients with a specialised response team allowing for both detailed mental health and medical assessments

• Improve patient outcomes by connecting them to specialised mental health services, particularly community-based services

• Reduce unnecessary ED presentations by people with low-medium acuity mental health concerns

• Keep emergency ambulances available in the community for medical response