After Hours Mental Health

After Hours Mental Health Service

After hours mental health team has a qualified Mental Health Social Worker and an Aboriginal Health Worker. As this is position is after hours which is an option for the clients if they need help outside of the normal 9-5 working hours. In this role, counselling services are being provided. Clients are being provided with awareness around the mental health and general health especially with covid19. Clients are being informed about the mental health crisis line 131 465 which they can use if they are facing a crisis situation or mental health issues. During the afterhours, workers visit hospital as well as local police station, where they provide support to the people who are in need. In this position, social worker also provides the client case management which initiates after enrolment. The process begins with first step: the triage assessment followed by client referrals and then enrolment. Social worker closely works with psychiatrist as well as psychologist and regularly follow up the clients who are facing mental health issues. Generally, client follow ups are done during home visits, phone calls, and/or outreach. The plan is being made with clients by using client centre practices. Regular follow up with clients and encouragement from staff help clients to be on track. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been extremely hard to provide face to face services to the clients. Most of the client follow ups were done by using phone calls which is not a very convenient way as most of the clients do not have phones. Another main issue is that clients travel between the communities and as they do not have the phones which makes it hard for us to keep in touch with them. Besides this, during the visits of allied health professionals, clients sometimes refuse to receive the services thus it becomes hard to help them and keep things on track. As a team, we try to perform best as per our capabilities. Health worker helps social worker by introducing the client which is a great help in establishing a rapport with the clients. From thereon, social worker does assessments and help clients appropriately.

We are here to help.

AHMH Staff Phone No: 0437 268 933

On February 15th 2022, two clients were tested positive for covid19 and afterhours workers followed them up and made sure that clients have all the basic stuff. Afterhours worked in collaboration with SAPOL to help the clients. SAPOL talked to clients and arranged a place for clients for isolation, while afterhours staff arranged some drinking water for clients. Clients were then escorted by SAPOL to the isolation place. Afterhours staff arranged clean clothes, water, food, and some wound dressing for one of the clients, and delivered it to them. Staff and SAPOL explained to the clients the importance of following isolation procedure to be safe.

- Written by- AHMH Staff.

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