NSW Family & Carer Mental Health Program

The Family and Carer Mental Health Program addresses the needs of families and carers through a strongly linked service model that recognises the need for:

Family-friendly mental health services

The Program supports the development of mental health services so that families and carers are recognised, supported and included in treatment planning and service provision.

Mental health family and carer support

The four NGOs supplying the Mental Health Family and Carer Support Service provide not only education and training to build coping skills and resilience but also support services including direct provision of individual support, information, advocacy and peer support.

Generic family and carer supports

The program will support awareness of, and access to, mainstream support services such as counselling, respite and financial support.

Partnerships

The NGOs will form partnerships in order to provide comprehensive support. The key partners are: 

• Families and carers
• Consumers
• Area Mental Health Services
• Other NGOs working with families and carers (not funded by this program)
• Generic and family carer support providers (e.g. carer support officers)
• Respite service providers

Mental health family and carer support

Direct support services for families and carers are provided by the following NGOs in each Area Health Service (AHS):

Carer Assist

• Greater Southern AHS
• Hunter New England AHS
• Sydney South West AHS

Carers NSW (Tel: 02 9280 4744 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              02 9280 4744      end_of_the_skype_highlighting or 1800 242 636 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              1800 242 636      end_of_the_skype_highlighting)

• Greater Western AHS 
• North Coast AHS
• Sydney South East/Illawarra AHS

ARAFMI (Tel: 02 9332 0700 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              02 9332 0700      end_of_the_skype_highlighting or 1800 655 198 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              1800 655 198      end_of_the_skype_highlighting)

• Northern Sydney/Central Coast AHS

Uniting Care Mental Health (Tel: 02 8842 8289 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              02 8842 8289      end_of_the_skype_highlighting)

• Sydney West AHS

Outcomes

• Improved family/carer wellbeing
• Improved outcomes for consumers
• Increased family and carer knowledge and ability to manage caring role effectively
• Families and carers are supported to have continuous involvement
• Referral of families and carers to support/training by the mental health service
• Open communication between services about family/carer issues
• Consistency of services and support across NSW