While addressing the gap in psychosocial supports outside the NDIS must be a top priority for governments, QAMH believe that there is a significant opportunity to develop a wellbeing focused ecosystem of support – utilising navigator supports based on social prescribing – to meet information, advice, referral and capacity building needs for all people with foundational support needs. We believe that these supports are required in addition to targeted psychosocial supports for people experiencing moderate to severe functional impacts due to mental illness. It also requires a well-resourced network of support groups and activities for people to be referred into, tailored to the needs of local communities.

In this submission, our key messages include:

• A five-year plan to increase investment in psychosocial supports outside the NDIS must be agreed by Commonwealth, State and Territory governments as a matter of priority to address the critical gap in supports for people experiencing moderate to severe mental illness.
• Foundational Supports should utilise Principles for Foundational Supports (see Box 1) and include a mix of:
  • Wellbeing Connectors: place-based navigator support based on social prescribing that helps people to identify their wellbeing goals and develop a plan to meet those needs. Wellbeing Connectors should be wellbeing focused, not illness or disability focused. They should utilise trauma-informed approaches and aim to develop individual, family and community capacity.
  • Community-based groups and activities: diverse local networks of funded capacity-building peer support groups and social prescribing activities that people can be linked into, depending on their needs and wellbeing goals.
  • Targeted Psychosocial Supports: one-to-one, practical, person-led supports that create opportunities for people to better respond to their needs, such as social connection, relationships, self-care and economic participation. Psychosocial support workers may draw upon their own personal life-changing journey of mental health challenges, service use and recovery to coach others on their recovery if working in lived-living experience peer worker roles. They also enable carers, family and kin to participate in employment and engage with the community.
• First Nations communities must have sovereignty over the design and delivery of supports, recognising their right to self-determination and ensuring culturally safe and appropriate services that align with cultural protocols and community priorities.
• Outreach supports and innovative service delivery models should be co-designed with vulnerable hard to reach groups, including People with Multicultural and Diverse Backgrounds and Connections, and mental health carers.
• Funding models must include adequate pricing for regional supports, training and supervision, governance, risk management and quality assurance processes. They should also seek to co-design outcomes measures upfront, enable flexibility in service delivery, and incorporate brokerage funding to encourage holistic and innovative approaches to wellbeing.
• The needs of individuals accessing support for multiple disabilities across the ecosystem need to be considered to ensure that they are not unfairly disadvantaged by the system.
• Workforce challenges and opportunities should be addressed as a priority to ensure that we are able to meet sector capacity needs.