The WA Mental Health Commission is defunding community based mental health services which have supported people across Perth and the Southwest for the past 56 years.
GROW WA Director and former Gallop Government Minister, Dr Judy Edwards, said today that the Commission is defunding psychosocial mental health support services and replacing them with recreational activities.
"This means that up to 200 often highly vulnerable people who come to GROW services each week will no longer receive GROW's support and have been offered no viable alternatives for their psychosocial needs".
"People attending GROW community services want to come to the Grow Program because it is trauma informed and recovery oriented – it helps people recover from mental illness - but instead they are being offered more recreational activities such as bike clubs, fishing, and 10-pin bowling as alternatives – and largely not in the same geographic locations".
"All nice to do but not recovery oriented".
"For 56 years in WA and 66 years across Australia and other parts of the world, Grow has been a world leader in codesign by people with lived experience – the people who participate in our programs and who are constantly renewing the program to ensure it remains contemporary".
"The Commission is taking away that funding and giving it to existing service providers with little or no experience in codesign but who say they 'will' codesign".
"Why take away that funding and create that risk when the Commission has been funding world leaders in codesign like GROW for many years?"
Mrs Mel Hayward, secretary of the WA Branch Program Team – the lived experience group responsible for the program and the role of volunteers – said today ""Without GROW I wouldn't be here today".
"I'm thankful for so many things but especially that GROW has made my life worthwhile again."
National CEO of GROW Australia, David Butt, said today that the decision meant that WA would be the only state in Australia where GROW is not funded and supported by governments.
"This decision demonstrates a reduced government commitment to the role of consumers – people with lived experience in mental health – and a reduced commitment to community mental health psychosocial services in WA," Mr Butt said.
"That's after 56 years of GROW service to this state and its people – WA is going backwards on mental health, not forwards".
"The decision also means that six people with lived experience and deep peer support experience will lose their jobs and quite incredibly WA also will lose 7200 hours of volunteer time each year when most states are crying out for more volunteers."
Dr Edwards said the Commission decision came from a "troubled" tender process which combined two previous separate funding streams, adding Mutual Support and Self-Help funding (which currently funds GROW and other psychosocial supports) to the Group Support Activities Services program, largely focused on recreation services. This is in opposition to WA mental health policies and has resulted in a bias towards recreational services.
"Every existing mutual support and self-help organisation has been defunded through this process, with funding for psychosocial mental health services decimated," Dr Edwards said.
"Such a decision highlights a deeply disturbing issue, that either the Commission procurement team got it wrong, or the mutual support and self-help groups that got defunded didn't know how to deliver psychosocial group support even though they had been doing it for decades in local communities in WA".
"Unbelievably, the Commission advised all of us on Christmas Eve that we were being defunded as of 31 March".
"Already the Commission has apologised for the poor process and has extended existing contracts twice – from 31 March to 12 May and then to 30 June – because, while they had promised there would be like for like services for participants in psychosocial services, there were not".
"The Commission also has agreed to conduct a probity audit into the process but has advised that regardless of the outcome of that audit the decisions will stand".
"The Commission keeps urging GROW to transition our participants to other services but GROW cannot be expected to try to transition its existing participants to new services when those services are either yet to be designed or are not the services GROW's clients seek. That could place vulnerable people at serious risk."
In feedback on a recent review of GROW against the National Standards for Mental Health Services in Australia, the (independent) chief reviewer advised on March 2023: "There are very few organisations that have truly embraced lived experience. There are a number of standouts and GROW is one of them."
Key Facts:
WA Mental Health Commission ran "troubled" tender process that lead to defunding proven psychosocial supports for hundreds of Western Australians.
After 56 years the WA MHC thinks recreational actvites are more appropriate than academically reviewed and accepted mutual support recovery groups.
GROW saves lives - and has been defunded, placing hundreds of people at high risk.
About us:
We are a community-based organisation that has helped thousands of Australians with their recovery from mental ill-health through a program of mutual support and personal development. GROW operates in every state in Australia supporting thousands of people on their journey of recovery and mental health wellbeing.
