After two years of working in a spirit of partnership and collaboration SNAP Gippsland and Latrobe Regional Hospital – Mental Health Services (LRH-MHS) officially opened the long awaited Gippsland Prevention and Recovery Care (PARC) Service on the 19th of June, 2008.
PARC is a relatively new service type and in Gippsland the PARC service has gone a considerable way to fill the service gap between hospital and home and to ensure a continuum of care for consumers of mental health services. The aim of PARC is to intervene early to prevent an acute admission and to assist people in their recovery after an acute admission. The 10 bed facility is staffed 24 hours, 7 days per week and stays are between 7 and 28 days.
SNAP and LRH-MHS have worked collaboratively through the lengthy renovation process of converting an unused older persons facility to a PARC unit. This was achieved through a Project Control Group which included representation from carers and consumers. A Model of Care was designed through negotiation which reflected the DHS PARC Guidelines and Gippsland’s unique requirements given the implications of its geographic spread. A Memorandum of Understanding between SNAP Gippsland and LRH was established which makes provision for an Operational Group and Governance Group. Meetings of these sub-committees are scheduled monthly. Any changes to the Model of Care or budgets are to be negotiated and recommendations made for final approval by the Governance Group.
Client assessments are conducted collaboratively.
SNAP in collaboration with Frameworks for Health (formerly the Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria) has adapted Collaborative Therapy (CT) to be delivered in total within an average stay at PARC of 14 days. Collaborative Therapy is a therapeutic framework for working with consumers, carers, service providers and others in a systematic way, in order to achieve optimal health outcomes.
CT has 3 core components:
- Education
- Coping Strategies
- Skills Development
CT is based on the Self Efficacy Model (“I can do”) to empower the client and place them in control of their own illness and recovery by shifting the focus from “illness to health” and from being “dependent on” to being “supported by” services.
The feedback from PARC service-users on exit from PARC has been very positive. There has been particular reference to the delivery of Collaborative Therapy and the difference that this has made to the coping skills of the service-users. The Gippsland PARC service is the only PARC to have an identified model of service.
Research of this adapted version of CT is being undertaken by Frameworks for Health;