Towards the end of 2006, The Victorian Drought Taskforce Response allocated $3.4 million of non-recurrent funding under the Tackling Mental Health and Drought Counselling Strategies initiative as part of its overall response to drought. Funding was initially for twelve months to December 2007, but was later extended to September 2008.
The funding provided for:
(i) Additional counselling in the Exceptional Circumstances (EC)2 declared regions of Loddon Mallee, Grampians, Hume, Gippsland and Barwon from December 2007; (4 EFT per region);
(ii) A telephone information and referral line for farming communities;
(iii) A rural training and development project for rural counsellors provided by The Bouverie Centre; and
(iv) Funding to Primary Care Partnerships (PCPs) to conduct a range of activities and to coordinate services.
All were expected to locate clinical work within a whole of population approach and to endorse mental health promotion strategies. Although counsellors employed as part of this project were expected to outreach, promote counselling with a wide range of community groups and strengthen existing community networks, the responsibility for the co-ordination of the broader network of services was located with the PCPs as indicated by the briefing document: 'Primary Care Partnerships (PCPs) are the mechanism in Victoria for supporting integrated, planned partnership development between locally based health and community services, including local government. PCPs will lead a collaborative approach to developing a range of community-based activities to build community resilience to the effects of the drought' (Department of Human Services (DHS), 2006). Whilst this report focuses on the counselling component of the drought response, the counselling component and network coordination was found to be inextricably linked, albeit not always well linked.
AIMS OF THE DHS INITIATIVE
The DHS Community Health drought counselling guidelines (DHS guidelines 2006) outline four aims of the initiative:
- To help people in farming communities manage distressing thoughts and feelings resulting from living through the experience of drought.
- To develop and provide counselling approaches that are accessible by members of farming communities affected by the drought, particularly those people who would not normally consider counselling.
- To have counsellors participate in health promotion activities through involvement with Primary Care Partnerships (PCPs).
- To contribute to the development of an evidence base about effective counselling practice in rural areas.
TARGET GROUP
The DHS Community health drought counselling guidelines (Department of Human Services (DHS), 2006, p. 4) state that the target group for the initiative was: 'Members of farming communities, farmers and their families and other people who have been employed in primary industries and associated businesses.' As part of the initial brief, rural people who were doing it tough due to the drought, but unlikely to engage counselling services, were to be actively targeted.
INITIAL FUNDING
The original budget for part (iii) of the overall project (the rural training and development project for rural counsellors provided by The Bouverie Centre) was $200, 000 for the period December 2006 '“ December 2007. This funding was extended by $23, 000 several months into the project in order to increase the number of No Bullshit Therapy training workshops due to unprecedented interest; and to extend the project to include staff from the Personal Support and Counselling Line, a
DHS BRIEF FOR THE BOUVERIE CENTRE
BOUVERIE DROUGHT COUNSELLING TRAINING AND SUPPORT PROJECT FEBRUARY '“ DECEMBER 2007
The Bouverie Centre was to provide a comprehensive training and 'rural practice' support program for rural counsellors to develop responsive approaches to people in farming communities affected by drought. Evaluation of previous 'drought counselling' initiatives had indicated that although there is an identified need for counselling in times of distress (i.e. drought) in rural areas, usually services remained under-utilised. The training project focused on developing counselling approaches that 'work' for rural people. The project was expected to take an action research approach whereby counsellors would learn skills such as 'No Bullshit Therapy' and co-develop successful strategies for engaging with rural people. Through the project, counsellors were to be invited to collaborate about their experiences, which would lead to the development of improved knowledge, practice wisdom and effective models for delivering counselling to rural communities.
5 KEY DELIVERABLES
- A two-day training forum for all drought funded 'family services' and 'primary health' counsellors after counsellors had commenced work.
- Monthly rural peer support groups - Co-operative Inquiry Groups (CIGs).
- No Bullshit Therapy training for counsellors from all program areas in the five rural regions.
- A mechanism for knowledge sharing between regions and the development of relevant resources.
- A participatory action research project to document and begin to establish an evidence-based model for delivering counselling services to drought affected communities.
PROJECT EXTENSION
About 10 months into the project, additional funding ($295,000) was secured to:
- Extend the project to June 2008;
- Include the Barwon South West drought counsellors;
- Develop two state-wide projects that emerged from the CIG network (NB Support and Looking out for your Neighbour);
- Expand the successful newsletter, No Bull, (8 to 20 pages, and from a production run of 250 to 1000); and
- Provide a fully funded 2 day best-practice forum in
Funding to extend support to the drought counsellors to September 2008 was provided ($39,000), in order to coincide with the state-funded drought counsellors' funding round.
