THE Nationals WA has unveiled its mental health plan for regional Western Australia, committing $140 million over five years with the investment focused on community support and prevention.
The Nationals WA leader Mia Davies said the package included a review of WA's mental health network to identify gaps and prioritise spending.
With the post-COVID-19 lockdown seeing a return to huge pressure on the State's emergency rooms and hospitals, Ms Davies said it was important that the money was spent in the right places.
"From the sector's perspective, too much is going into the acute end and not enough into the community support," Ms Davies said.
"We know that if individuals are suffering from mental ill health and are unwell are able to access early support structures within their own community, surrounded by their family and friends, then they are able to recover far more quickly and we don't end up having them in the acute end of the system, which is where nobody should end up in crisis."
Under the plan the party has committed $100m for community support structures for regional WA, $20m to establish and operate rural and remote neighbourhood centres, $5m to roll out mental health first aid into the school curricula for WA school students, $5m to support the establishment of 'Peer-to-family Networks' across WA, $5m to create an Individual Placement and Support employment program and $5m towards mental telehealth and Lifeline WA capacity.
Supported by the WA Schools Principals Association, Ms Davies said the introduction of mental health first aid into WA's school curriculum would make a huge difference in increasing awareness and understanding of mental illness in WA's youth.
The mental health package has been backed by WA Association for Mental Health (WAAMH) chief executive officer Taryn Harvey and Linkwest chief executive officer Jane Chilcott.
Ms Harvey said the current mental health system in WA was driving people to crisis.
"It requires people to become distressed or become unwell before they get the help they need," Ms Harvey said.
"If we can actually stop people from becoming unwell or we can stop existing mental health issues deteriorating to the point of distress, we will both improve people's lived experience of mental health in our system and also take significant pressure off our hospitals and our community treatment services, which are under massive pressure."
Ms Harvey said regional WA was particularly behind when it came to spending in mental health prevention programs and community support.
Through WAAMA's 'Prevent. Support. Heal.' program, the organisation had created a breakdown of how many mental health community support hours are required per region and how much the government had already purchased.
"What we know is across WA we need to spend 22 per cent of our mental health budget on community support and we need to spend 6pc on prevention," Ms Harvey said.
"We're only spending 5pc and 1pc respectively.
"That gap is particularly acute in our regions."
Ms Harvey said it was key for local communities to be given the ability to support themselves, build their community resilience around mental health and their capacity in existing community resources that people trust.
"Things like investing in supporting people to achieve employment through the IPS (Individual Placement and Support program), the community resource centres and neighbourhood centres and their important role and investing in local and regional ACOS (Assertive Community Outreach Service) to provide social and emotional wellbeing and cultural support as a critical prevention measure are all very welcome," Ms Harvey said.
Ms Chilcott said she was pleased to see community resource centres and neighbourhood centres highlighted in The Nationals WA mental health package, which prevented people having to travel to large regional centres for help.
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