The purpose of this project is to better understand the capacity
building needs of rural producers and their communities to effectively address
mental health issues in the face of increasing uncertainty with climate
variability and change. The focus has been
on establishing issues, current capacity and gaps in order to develop
intervention strategies to support capacity. The project approached this
issue by undertaking workshops in twelve communities across south western
Queensland: Warwick, Dalby, Kingaroy, Goondiwindi, Dirranbandi, St George,
Mitchell, Roma, Miles, Chinchilla, Charleville and Cunnamulla. The workshops will be completed by mid April
2011.
In each community farmers and graziers, land care groups, fire
brigades, show societies, schools, health care workers, police, non government
organisations, rural financial counsellors, police, ambulance and rural boards
e.g. the Cotton boards were contacted to be participants. Several methods were
used to contact groups, phone, email, and letters with follow up phone
calls. Press releases were placed in
local papers and several interviews were run on ABC radio. After each workshop a report has been written, sent to the participants
for further comment or correction and then placed on a blog site. They are then
able to read about there own workshop, as well as the other eleven and follow
developments with the project and develop cross-linkages between the
communities.
In addition a survey has been designed to be either posted or emailed
to the people who were interested in the workshops, but were unable to attend.
These surveys have also been distributed at a local cattle sale, left with some
rural financial counsellors and distributed to the Crows Nest Show Society
Members.
A common theme that has emerged from the workshops is that rural people
and their surrounding communities are under sustained stress resulting from a
mix of droughts, floods, mining, vegetation and water policy. All were seen to impact on mental health and
community well being. Remote male rural
producers were particularly identified as vulnerable and difficult to engage or
support. A wide range of services and initiatives from government,
non-government and the community have been identified during the
workshops. A community initiative of
note was the “Tie up the Black Dog” program which has held events throughout
the region and using sports starts and others to entice men to activities. Costs are an issue in reproducing and
continuing the momentum across the region.
Despite existing resources, gaps and needs remain if capacity is to be
built and maintained to manage mental health issues.
A number of activities were identified during the workshops where
social capacity could be built within existing resources. This included greater networking and
collaborations between agencies and groups concerned with mental health issues
and collating information about and promoting services and pathways to
residents to gain information and assistance.
There was a high level of interest in obtaining skills in Mental First
Aid – with suggestions that providing such skills across the community could
strengthen the community’s capacity to recognise and address issues as they
emerged. There was also a belief that
such awareness and training could be better incorporated into other activities
being run within the communities – for example when an agronomy workshop was
run, or in conjunction with Chamber of Commerce activities etc. The key would be to have materials readily
available that could be adapted and used in these contexts and to have
deliverers with sufficient training to effectively address the issues as well
as their technical concern.
A
key issue has been to establish opportunities for Collaborative Partnership for
Farming and Fishing Health and Safety Program to pilot/implement capacity
building activities for rural communities and their communities to manage
mental health issues. From the data to
date, potential opportunities include:
Develop a Framework for communities
and industries to use
Communities
lack a clear framework and pathway to understand mental health issues and how
they can better work together to address them.
This would include: providing the information that emerges from this
research; and pointing to resources and opportunities (for example: how to access
Mental Health First Aid Training; How to run activities in association with
initiatives such as “Tie up the Black Dog”; how to develop and maintain a
register of services and resources; etc).
Testing the Framework and Process for
using it to develop capacity
Pilot
studies could be run with 2-3 communities to refine and test both the content
and process of using the framework. The
tested framework can then be promoted in other communities with associated
training programs for key community representatives. On line access and delivery can be used for
the framework and associated training and support.
Development of materials to be used in
other rural events
Materials
and associated training packages could be developed and tested to be used in
conjunction with other events (for example: agronomy workshops; community
events) dealing with mental first aid and steps that can be taken to deal with
issues.
These
ideas will be further tested and defined leading up to Phase 2 of the project.
Project Leaders Reflection
The people in the rural communities appear to be “Time Poor”. There is less labour force, more work and
each climatic event brings it own extra work load; e.g. drought hand feeding
and carting water, fencing with fire and floods , not to mention stock losses
and crop damage.
They also appear to be mistrustful of government due to a range of
government legislation which heavily affects them; tree clearing, Murray
Darling Basin and Coal Seam Gas. On the positive, rural women were ever present
at the workshops and should be utilised in the facilitation of the capacity
building initiative. They have a greater flexibility in how they utilise their
time, they love their families and are in a position of quite power and
influence.
