Peer support – addressing the growing demand

  Published: 02 May 2012 by Fiona Clapham Howard

It may seem like it’s “flavour of the month”, but really, peer support is nothing new.

Training directory fills sector gap

  Published: 01 May 2012 by Brennan Gracie

As first of its kind for New Zealand, we are definitely excited to announce the launch on the online searchable disability training directory.

Workforce the key to using information well

  Published: 10 May 2012 by Robyn Shearer

Te Pou has a long history in outcomes measurement, development and, most importantly, the utility of good information to make a positive difference in people’s lives.

National outcomes forum

  Published: 10 May 2012 by Richard Woodcock

One of Te Pou's key responsibilities is to provide sector leadership which supports the collection, use and understanding of mental health information and outcomes.

Pacific scholarships and awards address health workforce shortages

  Published: 03 April 2012 by Monique Faleafa

Nearly $1.7 million will be awarded to more than 220 Pacific people who have chosen to study a health related qualification in 2012.

Successful first day at GPS conference

Yesterday morning saw a ‘full house’ at Waipuna Conference Centre, with more than 300 people coming together for the GPS Growing Pacific Solutions for our families conference, organised by Le Va.

Aligning grant funding with real needs

  Published: 05 April 2012 by Brennan Gracie

Over the past few months we have been working closely with Health Workforce New Zealand and Ministry of Health Disability Support Services to ensure grant funding for the disability sector aligns to real needs and priorities.

Geospatial Mapping of Suicide Clusters

  Published: 12 April 2012 by Jane Vanderpyl

It’s reasonably well-known that close friends and acquaintances of people who die by suicide are at increased risk of dying by suicide themselves. The term ‘suicide cluster’ is used to describe this phenomenon of suicides that occur close together in time or space, beyond the rate that would normally be expected in a community.

Culture the key to growing Pacific solutions

The GPS 2012 - Growing Pacific Solutions for our families fono held in Auckland earlier this month brought together over 300 delegates from the health, social services and disability sector for the first inter-sectoral Pacific gathering this year.

Launch of the Le Va Pacific disability cultural competency training programme

The launch of Le Va’s Pacific Disability Cultural Competency Training Programme at the GPS 2012 fono marks an important milestone in the development of Pacific cultural competency training as an effective tool in supporting non-Pacific people to better engage and respond to the needs of Pacific peoples.

Forging collaborative partnerships across sectors

  Published: 24 April 2012 by Monique Faleafa

Earlier this month the GPS 2012: Growing Pacific Solutions for our families national fono brought our Pacific communities and mental health, addictions, disabilities and other social sectors together, to work across boundaries on common issues and share innovation.

Co-existing problems service checklist

  Published: 27 April 2012 by Emma Wood

Many services are currently in the planning process to develop service level responsiveness and capability to people with co-existing problems (CEP).

Working together effectively

  Published: 27 April 2012 by Robyn Shearer

It has been a great journey working in partnership with Matua Raki and the Werry Centre to bring together work supporting services in managing co-existing mental health and addiction disorders.

Building responsiveness

  Published: 15 March 2012 by Emma Wood

Building responsiveness to service user needs is an ongoing activity for many organisations.

Working with you

  Published: 15 March 2012 by Robyn Shearer

Last year Te Pou made changes to the way it works with organisations on workforce and service development.

Professional supervision forum

  Published: 29 March 2012 by Suzette Poole

Thirty-three professional supervision champions recently attended a national forum run by Te Pou in Wellington.

Professional supervision

  Published: 29 March 2012 by Robyn Shearer

Supervision remains an important aspect of safe practice in mental health and addictions services.

Pacific health issues under spotlight

  Published: 20 March 2012 by Monique Faleafa

Multiple agencies will meet in Auckland in early April for the first ever conference aimed specifically at addressing mental health, addiction and disability issues within New Zealand’s Pacific community.

Training aims to improve Pacific health

  Published: 30 March 2012 by Monique Faleafa

Health and disability professionals will soon be able to gain a better cultural understanding of Pacific peoples via New Zealand’s first ever online cultural training programme.

Sensory modulation in practice

  Published: 17 February 2012 by Jane Vanderpyl

Te Pou has been working alongside district health boards (DHBs) to safely embed the practice, as well as support research in this area.

Influencing the reduction of seclusion and restraint

  Published: 17 February 2012 by Robyn Shearer

When I first started working in mental health inpatient services seclusion and restraint was embedded in practice culture.

Outcomes training in Christchurch

  Published: 27 February 2012 by Mark Smith

Te Pou provided a number of training sessions in Christchurch over the week of 13-17 February.

Bridging gaps for the Pacific disability sector

Pati Umaga, a poor humble Samoan boy from Wainuiomata is a man on a mission. "My vision for disabled Pacific people is that they build strong relationships with others and feel a part of the community. Our people are standoffish with service providers. It only takes one bad experience to turn them off. We want to access the world and contribute."

GPS 2012 - Growing Pacific Solutions for our families

Sector expectation is growing with just over five weeks until Le Va’s inaugural GPS 2012 national fono with key partners.

Outcome dialogues

  Published: 17 January 2012 by Mark Smith

Imagine an advocate for outcome measurement (known as OM), an outcome measurement sceptic (Thomas - as in doubting) and an outcome measurement rejecter (Humbug) having a series of earnest dialogues about outcome measurement in mental health: how might their dialogues go?

Supporting innovative practices

  Published: 19 January 2012 by Robyn Shearer

This year is set to bring more challenges within a tighter financial environment and high expectations to deliver even better services. This environment provides the opportunity to support innovative practice and strong partnerships.

Growing Pacific Solutions

  Published: 19 January 2012 by Monique Faleafa

Over the last four years Le Va’s portfolio has expanded to include Pacific workforce development initiatives and national coordination services in Pacific mental health, disability support, general health and addictions.

How to make information more alive for nurses working in mental health

  Published: 26 January 2012 by Mark Smith

In this column I want to return to a theme I have touched on before. Namely, how to make information more alive for nurses.

Service user perspective - A sensory world

  Published: 26 January 2012 by Carolyn Swanson

When you first look at sensory modulation approaches, you see a pile of tools usually in attractive spaces and it looks like a ‘nice to have’ sort of thing. Don’t be fooled, it can be so much more than that.

2011 Skills Matter student survey

Skills Matter, on behalf of the Ministry of Health, funds about 260 full-time-equivalent nurses to undertake postgraduate mental health and addiction training each year. Read about the results of the 2011 student survey.

The challenges and successes of the past 12 months

  Published: 08 December 2011 by Robyn Shearer

As the year draws to an end I’ve been reflecting on the challenges and successes of the past 12 months.

Reflecting on our disability work

  Published: 01 December 2011 by Robyn Shearer

As we approach the end of 2011 it is important to reflect on achievements. Te Pou has taken on the challenge of workforce development with the disability sector. This work aligns well with the work we have already established in mental health and addictions, and with the Pacific sector.

Looking forward to Christmas

  Published: 01 December 2011 by Brennan Gracie

It's December already and I am so looking forward to Christmas and the upcoming holiday season. This Saturday, 3 December also marks World Disability Day - an opportunity to recognise and celebrate our sector.

The impact of Let's get real

  Published: 08 December 2011 by David Bradley

Since Let’s get real was launched in September 2008, the national team supporting implementation of Let’s get real has been inspired by the interest and uptake of the framework across the sector. We have now released a range of new resources which highlight the impact Let’s get real is making for services and individuals.

Service user perspective - Mental myths and mighty musings

  Published: 01 November 2011 by Carolyn Swanson

The role of mental health nursing is such an important one for people in pain, the difference between life and death at times and almost always between living and existing.

Outcomes training feedback

  Published: 09 November 2011 by Mark Smith

Te Pou has recently provided a number of outcome training workshops. I thought it might be of interest to comment on some of this work.

Innovation

  Published: 11 November 2011 by Tony Farrow

It is inspiring to see clinicians leading innovative work, more so when the innovation shows early indications of improved outcomes for service users who have used mental health services for long periods of time.

An outcome worth having: The dilemma of perspective

  Published: 18 November 2011 by Mark Smith

What is an outcome worth having in mental health and who should decide what it is? Stupid question you may well say. However, it seems to me this question goes to the heart of what is important in our mental health services.

Outcomes training

  Published: 22 November 2011 by Mark Smith

New Zealand is fortunate to have a number of dedicated and expert mental health outcome trainers across our various district health boards. These trainers provide training to their own clinicians in outcome measurement.

The place of culture in Pacific youth spaces

  Published: 06 November 2011 by Manase Lua

Le Va hosted the When Culture and Care Connect forum on 10 June 2011. This was the first ever national forum on Pacific cultural competency across all sectors held in New Zealand.

When Culture and Care Connect 2011

The success of Le Va’s Engaging Pasifika cultural competency training programme is generating interest from sectors other than health, like education, corrections and social services sectors.

Awards recipient receives Prime Minister's Pacific Youth Award

When Jessica Papali’i-Curtin, a Pacific Health Workforce Awards recipient, heard that she was among a small group of outstanding, young, Pacific New Zealanders to receive the Prime Minister’s Pacific Youth Award, she felt very humbled.

The only constant is change

  Published: 18 October 2011 by Robyn Shearer

Since Te Pou was established in 2006 our objectives haven’t changed. We wanted to enhance people’s health and wellbeing by developing a mental health and addiction workforce that has the skills to provide the best service possible to those who need it. Today, five years on, this remains our overarching philosophy.

Let's get real... about ourselves?

Imagine being surrounded by people trying to help you who never ask how you feel about your situation or what help you would like to receive? This is exactly what Helen Warren uncovered during her PhD research on how people with mental health and addictions are supported in the community.

When Culture and Care Connect fono - key findings

  Published: 19 October 2011 by Manase Lua

How clinical information tells a story

  Published: 26 September 2011 by Mark Smith

Some people think information is all about numbers and graphs, tables and statistics. While data is usually in this form information actually shows the meaning of data; it does this by telling a story.

Values-based information

  Published: 01 August 2011 by Mark Smith

Information can seem a dry and boring subject; all about numbers and graphs and statistics. However, I think this is to confuse data with information. Information is about data which has meaning and the reason it has meaning is that it resonates with people’s values in some way. What information we chose to collect and how we decide to use it will depend on people’s values.

Long-term outcomes

  Published: 01 July 2011 by Mark Smith

While we expect and understand why politicians have a short-term perspective, we hope and expect clinicians will have a longer perspective, beyond three years at any rate. Unfortunately sometimes clinicians can also be struck by 'short-termitis'. Focusing on the long-term outcomes for service users can be a useful antidote to this short-term perspective.

Let's get real contributes to nursing knowledge and skills

Always on the lookout for good resources Carole Schneebeli, mental health nurse educator for Waitemata District Health Board (DHB), was delighted when the Let’s get real framework and enablers (tools and learning modules) became available in 2009.

The grit in the shell

  Published: 01 June 2011 by Mark Smith

The grit is information and the shell is the mental health services. The organism is the soft people part of those services. We all hope for the arrival of pearls.

Information dictionary

  Published: 01 May 2011 by Mark Smith

This is a very selective and idiosyncratic information dictionary, offered with tongue firmly in my cheek. I compiled it for no better reason than that it connects many initiatives presently underway in information, with a large dollop of attempted humour.

Celebrating success

The achievements of the Pacific Health Workforce Awards recipients were celebrated at a ceremony hosted by the Ministry of Health on Friday, 6 May 2011. More than 330 people attended the event at the Dream Centre in Manukau including award recipients’ supporters, cabinet ministers, Ministry of Health officials and Te Pou and Le Va staff. Check out photos taken on the night.

Engaging Pasifika pilot training day

  Published: 02 May 2011 by Manase Lua

Engaging Pasifika is an applied training package aimed at better engagement with Pacific service users and their families. A training pilot was held on 30 April 2010, and the national roll out began in August 2010.

Emotional intelligence and information

  Published: 01 April 2011 by Mark Smith

I was challenged recently to ‘put more humanity’ into the outcomes information we put out to the sector. I confess that I was puzzled about how to do this for quite a while and even strictly whether it was really needed at all. After all, I mused, aren’t we appealing to people’s reason rather than their emotions? Don’t we want to have people change their practice because they see the evidence rather than simply feel an intuition?

Stages of change and information

  Published: 01 March 2011 by Mark Smith

Working with information can be frustrating. Not everyone seems to ‘get’ information and quite a few people actively resist its appeal. Sometimes in a fit of self-righteous despair it’s easy to start blaming things and people for this apparent lack of interest in outcomes and information. Generally blaming people really isn’t helpful. A better way is to try and understand why some people are immune to the pleasures of information.

Prompting good service

  Published: 01 February 2011 by Mark Smith

Recently, I had the good fortune to provide outcomes training to a group of clinicians who wanted to become trainers for other clinicians in outcome measurement. I found the experience strangely motivating due in no small part to the challenging questions and discussion, which all flowed quite freely (indeed some questions weren’t easy to answer at all and others were left for future research discoveries).

The tortoise and the hare

  Published: 18 January 2011 by Mark Smith

We all know the fable of the race between the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise – against all the odds – wins the race by persevering and not giving up. The hare easily takes the early lead but decides to have a nap midway and while he sleeps the tortoise overtakes him and wins the race. There is obviously a moral to this story and the moral has had a number of interpretations. My own preferred interpretation – and hence connection to information – is to see perseverance and humility as the keys to understanding the fable.

Relating to outcomes

  Published: 17 December 2010 by Mark Smith

This column is about relationships. I want to suggest that there has been a change in the past few years in the way most people in mental health services relate to the concept of outcomes measurement. The changes haven’t been dramatic but they do indicate a shift in attitude. Notice the emphasis is on the concept rather than the application of outcome measurement; I’ll have more to say about that distinction later.

Nudging choices towards better outcomes

  Published: 03 December 2010 by Mark Smith

In a recent book ‘Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness’ Thaler and Sunstein (2008) make a good argument for helping people to make better decisions about their own health (amongst other things) by nudging their choices in a certain direction.

The problem with unintended consequences

  Published: 26 October 2010 by Mark Smith

When we make aggregated information available about KPIs or aggregated outcomes we have an expectation of what we hope will happen as a result of people seeing that information. Not unreasonably, most of those expectations centre on people improving their performance or, in the case of outcomes, starting to collect them. These expectations can broadly be seen as intended consequences. There are – however – a great many unintended consequences involved when we make information available. While unintended consequences can be both positive and negative, the ones which interest us mostly are of the negative type. 

What's different about outcome information?

  Published: 30 September 2010 by Mark Smith

There is, to say the least, a lot of information in mental health services. While which bits of information are important and which aren’t is a matter for debate, I feel confident in claiming that outcome information is in the front rank in terms of its importance.

Common resistances to using outcome measurement

  Published: 13 August 2010 by Mark Smith

I have the good fortune to visit many district health boards. These visits usually involve some kind of training presentation in outcome information use to clinicians, managers and leaders of various kinds. By outcome information it should be understood I refer to the three mandated outcome measures in New Zealand: namely HoNOS, HoNOSCA and HoNOS 65+ (I’ll call these ‘the tools’). In many ways these presentations provide a barometer of the current acceptance by these groups of outcome measurement in their services.

Information Latin (not ancient Greek)

  Published: 21 July 2010 by Mark Smith

There was a time when much of the civilised world either used or aspired to use Latin. Through a combination of factors Latin became the de facto language for science, theology and much else besides. It bestrode the world like a colossus. Long before the unravelling of Europe in the twentieth century it provided a common currency and identity for much of Europe. Then, like some retreating tide, it disappeared from public life and was only discoverable in small pools of discourse and enquiry. This column briefly shines a light on Latin’s rise and fall in order to show interesting parallels with information.

The necessity for realism

  Published: 15 June 2010 by Mark Smith

I have a confession to make: I sometimes get dispirited in trying to implement information and outcome measurement. I sometimes feel a sense of futility about it all. Yet when I do feel a sense of futility, it is realism which gets me through. A healthy dose of realism is often the best medicine I find.

The 'mirror model' of information

  Published: 13 May 2010 by Mark Smith

This column is partly tongue in cheek; but only partly. The 'mirror model' of information is quite simple to grasp: it is whether, as health professionals, we can look ourselves in the mirror when we provide information to service users and know that we have provided the most useful, updated and relevant information that we can to help them with their recovery. My guess is that many people find it hard to look in the mirror on this matter at the moment.

Is our information person centred?

  Published: 10 April 2010 by Mark Smith

Person-centred information is information which respects the unique personhood of each individual. This may sound like jargon, but such a phrase does have implications for practice. This column will explore what a person-centred approach to information might look like and indicate some of the tensions such an approach could mean for our current information work.

Developing an information use checklist for community

  Published: 11 March 2010 by Mark Smith

What information do we absolutely need to be collecting and using in mental health services? Most DHBs and NGOs already have a reasonably good idea of what information they should be collecting. Less clear is what information they need to be using. Less clear still is what information clinicians need to be using. This column is focused on a checklist for clinicians and information use.

Inputs, outputs and outcomes

  Published: 12 February 2010 by Mark Smith

This column is not yet another justification for using outcomes in mental health services. Frankly I think the case for demonstrating the use of outcomes within mental health services has been well made already. This column, by contrast, is more interested in the relationship - or lack of relationship - between inputs, outputs and outcomes.

What astronomy can teach us about information use

  Published: 19 January 2010 by Mark Smith

I am interested in Astronomy. From the first years I can remember, I found the stars fascinating. In another life, with better mathematical physics skills, I would have loved to work in that area. Those who do work in that area are – in so many ways – like the explorers of earlier centuries on earth: pioneers of new lands and discoveries.

Christmas magic

  Published: 09 December 2009 by Mark Smith

The Christmas Carol – Dickens’ immortal rendering of the Christmas story in narrative form – has much to tell us about the way information is being treated in New Zealand.

What is the best way of using outcome information ethically?

  Published: 10 November 2009 by Mark Smith

This column is premised on the assumption that there are ethical issues involved in using information. There may be people who do not accept that there are ethical issues involved in using information. This column is not for them. I will not attempt to provide a justification (here) for why I think using information involves a range of ethical issues. Suffice to say, I think everything we do is ethical and hence using information is also necessarily ethical.

Is discriminating on the basis of performance acceptable?

  Published: 06 October 2009 by Mark Smith

Generally in today’s liberal democracies we strive not to discriminate between people on the basis of things which they can’t change or have little hope of changing such as their ethnicity, gender or  sexual orientation. This has not always been the case. For a long time it was seen as perfectly acceptable to discriminate between people on the basis of these, and other, attributes which they couldn’t change. For most people these changes in current practice would indicate some moral progress in the world.

Promoting an outcomes culture in New Zealand's mental health services

  Published: 17 September 2009 by Mark Smith

New Zealand – like many other countries – has been actively working on developing an outcomes culture within its mental health services for the past few years. As I will indicate later this commendable objective has not made all the gains we might have wanted. I will signal in this article how we might reignite the outcomes project and refocus our endeavours on promoting an outcomes culture within New Zealand once again. 

How not to use information

  Published: 10 August 2009 by Mark Smith

This column will focus on how not to use mental health information. A funny topic you may think, given that this column habitually focuses on the need to use information but perhaps we have simply had it all wrong. Perhaps, instead, we should heed the message of the silent majority that information is there not to be used.

Thinking outside the information paradigm

  Published: 07 July 2009 by Mark Smith

In this month’s column I want to discuss information which doesn’t fit our current information paradigm. I want to make a case for being more inclusive and accepting of information which doesn’t fit our current paradigm since – I will argue – that makes our information more comprehensive, diverse and hence robust.

What information do clinicians really, really want?

  Published: 09 June 2009 by Mark Smith

The truth is I don’t know what information clinicians really, really want. Sometimes I wonder if clinicians know what information they really, really want. So this piece is based on anecdotal guess work, conversations with clinicians and my own rather biased views on what clinicians really, really need.

The best reason for emphasising outcomes

  Published: 19 May 2009 by Mark Smith

We collect outcomes under PRIMHD (programme for the integration of mental health data). Eventually the PRIMHD data should enable us to generate useful and interesting reports to feed back to services. This is good in that, up to now, clinicians collecting outcome data have received little if anything back. Not surprisingly clinicians question the point of collecting such information when it doesn’t seem to have any use.

National Pacific Consumer and Family Recovery Conference

Le Va sponsored the inaugural national Pacific consumer and family recovery conference. This was through a successful application by the Waitemata DHB to the Fakatu’amelie Innovation Fund for a one-off grant.

Therapeutic interventions and information

  Published: 30 March 2009 by Mark Smith

Mental Health Information can sometimes seem a dry subject. Partly this is because it seems to be focused so much on collecting information and not on actually using it. Using information is where it’s at - and that is anything but dry and uninteresting.

Primary uses of mental health information

  Published: 13 March 2009 by Mark Smith

In this column I want to discuss the primary use of mental health information as a balance to the dominant paradigm of secondary use. The primary use of mental health information is designed to help a particular individual with their recovery and health. The secondary use is designed to aggregate information to support quality initiatives, research and monitoring of trends and patterns statistically over time. While the secondary uses of information is important the primary reason for collecting and using mental health information must always be seen as central.

Information ownership

  Published: 13 February 2009 by Mark Smith

In this month's pulse I want to discuss the related concepts of information ownership and attribution and why they sometimes get conflated in people's thinking, the dangers of that conflation and how that conflation can best be avoided.

The first edition of Information Pulse

  Published: 14 January 2009 by Mark Smith

Welcome to the very first edition of Information Pulse. This month the focus is on the reporting of information. Reporting is the way in which we present information. It is a vital part of the information jigsaw but one where the pulse is currently quite weak. Indeed, there are claims from the hinterland that the pulse cannot be found at all, or at best is very weak.