Talking therapies
Everyone deserves services that are relevant and meaningful to them, reflecting their cultural backgrounds and unique perspectives. Mental health and addiction services are evolving to meet the needs of New Zealand’s changing demographics. Te Pou plays a key role in this area.
Meeting people’s specific needs
First we developed A Guide to Talking Therapies in New Zealand, a user-friendly resource for service users and family/whānau members. We worked with the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists to clearly describe each talking therapy, what mental health issues each therapy is best used for and how people can access therapies.
In 2010, we developed a series of guides for mental health and addiction staff to support the growing diversity of people they work with. These guides focus on how to engage with people to form the vital therapeutic relationship, and how therapy can be adapted to meet people’s specific needs.
The talking therapies guides are for:
A talking therapies guide was also produced for people with problematic substance use.
The guides have been well received by the sector. An evaluation reported high sector uptake and strong impact. These guides are assisting practitioners to raise their awareness of the needs and perspectives of different population groups and enhance communication and practice.
Our work is guided by our key documents We Need to Act and the Action Plan for Talking Therapies 2008-2011.
Principles for Engagement
Principles for Engagement is a resource designed to support Let's get real Real Skills at essential level.
Engagement is the connection assisting therapeutic work between the service user and the worker and is critical in recovery, with service users, family/whānau and workers consistently emphasising its importance. This resource draws from extensive consultation with New Zealand practitioners, interviewed for the suite of talking therapies guides for different population groups.
Talking therapies research update
This quarterly research update, part of a series of research updates released by Te Pou, summarises new talking therapies research. It aims to inform people about current evidence-based talking therapies and how they can be applied in New Zealand.
This update builds on the previous talking therapies resources developed by Te Pou for clinicians and service users as activities within Te Pou’s Action Plan for Talking Therapies 2008-2011.
Distribution and use of talking therapies guides
Since first publication in June 2010, 5532 guides have been distributed to people from diverse disciplines, largely working in the mental health and addiction sector.
In June 2011, an online survey was sent to people who had downloaded or ordered hard copies of the guides to collect feedback on the quality and impact of these resources. In total 69 people responded to the survey.
The vast majority of respondents (75-95 per cent) reported the guides were "good" or "very good" in terms of readability, relevance, usefulness for improving engagement and for tailoring therapy.
Many respondents indicated that the guides improved their awareness about cultural differences and/or therapeutic strategies. The guides also reportedly facilitated changes in practice such as improved communication with service users, and adaptation of current strategies to improve cultural responsiveness. They have been used to assist training of new staff in services and are being incorporated into tertiary education programmes. Respondents also commented that the resources provided valuable links to other resources and readings.
People indicated that a larger amount of information, including case studies or scenarios, would have assisted in using the guides to tailor therapy. Ninety-five per cent of respondents would recommend the guides to colleagues, or had done so already.
Figure 1: Overall ratings of the quality of the talking therapies guides for specific populations (N=67).
Figure 2: Overall ratings of the utility of the talking therapies guides for specific populations (N=67).
