Archives for Health Services

TTL staff developed an innovative 8 session group programme for clients in positive psychology. This was delivered over 2 days as opposed to weeks and covered basic positive psychology principles regarding how individuals not only perceived happiness but the impact this had on their decision making and overall happiness and outlook on life. The programme focussed on peoples choices about how they processed events and thinking to focus on strengths. This programme was offered to local communities and was successfully delivered.

TTL staff have the experience and knowledge of providing education for GP practices regarding mental health issues, clozapine management for GP’s accepting referrals for clients being discharged from Mental Health Services. With GP’s being aware of the issues this has also reduced the time burden on GP’s and practice staff in relation to dealing with clients who present with mild to moderate mental illness issues. It is well recognised that clients presenting with mental health issues in the primary sector can be time consuming for GP’s with tight schedules and variable knowledge in regard to managing this client group.

TTL staff have been involved in the development of the psycho-social pharmacological educational programme to assist with medication intervention and aiding clients in understanding the role of medication in treatment and support, including relieving side effects, documenting physical symptomologies and physical wellbeing.

Through previous experience TTL staff provided a mental health education programme for family/whanau members to understand and help manage their family members illness. The programme provided education and resource covering critical areas such as understanding depression, bipolar, personality disorder and more, EWS, how to manage its impact on life, development of coping strategies, medication and other important areas relevant to the clients.

The establishment and operationalisation of a newly funded service to improve collaboration and integration between a range of DHB services community based services, Ministry of Justice and Department of Corrections.

Establishment of a newly developed position within the primary care setting where by processes were reviewed around the service role and function and identified gaps in service delivery. Identified improvements to the systems in place which reduced organisational risk in terms of clinical practice, funding and service reputation.

TTL staff were instrumental in establishing and delivering specialist clinical services based on an innovative model new to NZ model. The experienced TTL team developed and implemented robust clinical policies and procedures, reporting mechanisms and day programmes to be delivered as per the contractual requirements. The current TTL team bring this experience to its funders.

The service enabled people with a health and disability to build on naturalised supports in order to establish or remain in their own homes, develop community linkages that would sustain independent living and minimise the length of time and dependence on services. Current TTL staff have previous experience in piloting this international model that provided community support to the clients in the community with the highest need and addressing sudden support needs, sourcing accommodation for people identified as homeless, facilitating discharge from hospital inpatient units, which often involves sourcing accommodation, procuring basic furnishings and essentially setting people up who have very few possessions, into a sustainable home in the community.

Current TTL staff were previously instrumental in developing, implementing and operationalising a high and complex needs mental health residential service. The experience and skilll of the staff at the time ensured the service was operational within an 8 week timeframe.  Key stakeholders were engaged, local community were actively consulted and involved given the sensitive and potentially discriminatory attitudes and the service was successfully established. TTL staff bring this knowledge and experience to the proposed service.

TTL staff have previous experience of developing and implementing a programme for women at risk in the South Auckland area. Corporate funding was engaged to fund a pilot programme that successfully delivered a year long dedicated womans programme. This programme addressed issues such as preventative medicine, health and wellbeing, employment, confidence building, positive parenting, addressing substance use and computer skills training. The outcomes from this initiative were significant for the people who attended and the impact this had on their families/whanau. This initiative resulted in a number of women making significant lifestyle changes including engaging in tertiary study and employment for the first time. A number of the women in this group went on to become co-facilitators for subsequent groups, continued with their training through education providers such as, MIT, AUT etc and gained full time employment.