Young Carers Down Under

Camp Djanaba

2010-10-13T05:50:00.000-07:00

Wombats were promised and on script, there they were, munching the lush grass at Camp Djanaba; wildlife spotting being one of the added benefits of undertaking a travel fellowship in Australia.

Carers NSW Young Carers Pogram has a problem and the problem is the vast locality that they cover. 52 young carers between the ages of 8 and 12 were transported to camp by every means available including several travelling to Sydney by air and then joining the coaches for the three hour road trip to the camp. To make the journey worth while the camp is run for four days giving plenty of time to recover from the first night tiredness experienced by some of the children (and adults!).

Not a wombat

As with Camp Kookaburra, this camp run by Carers NSW is primarily a fun break for the young carers with the addition of some morning ‘chat groups’. Children are split into groups of around ten members with the support of three or four volunteer adult leaders. Each group is allocated a chat group facilitator whose role it is to lead the group through a series of exercises covering issues related to being a young carer e.g. your family, which family member needs to be cared for and how does that impact on you, identifying your strengths etc. The purpose of these groups is to enable the young carers to feel less isolated and to develop a group identity. Witnessing some of the children making connections with others in the group or developing an understanding of issues that have caused them confusion or understanding for the first time that they have real strengths is always moving.

Camp Djanaba was similar in structure to Camp Kookaburra in that support mechanisms for young carers and adult volunteers was an integral part of the service model. Camp facilitators met together each day for reflection and de-briefing and to pass on concerns raised about any of the young carers to the Carers NSW team.

As you would expect the camp was packed with fun activities from archery to billy cart racing via raft building, swimming, film nights and games; a great way to round off my month in Australia.

NSW COPMI Framework

2010-10-05T05:30:00.000-07:00

A busy day in Manly

It’s been the long holiday weekend here and so I’ve had the time to do a bit of sightseeing which has included a trip up to the beautiful Blue Mountains and another over to Manly on the ferry. It’s also been a welcome opportunity to catch up on a bit of background reading and to bring all my notes up to date.

The Blue Mountains

Today’s meetings have taken me out of the city again to meet two key people driving the COPMI agenda here in NSW. Firstly I set off to meet Dr Adrian Falkov, a child & adolescent psychiatrist who has played an integral part in the development of policy, training and practice relating to COPMI families in both Australia and the UK and then off to meet Noha Sutton, the COPMI/Parenting Program Manager at the policy department, MH-Kids who is responsible for ensuring the implementation of the newly published NSW COPMI Framework.

Both meetings proved to be a great opportunity to gain a better overall picture of the NSW COPMI programme including policy as well as practice and to discuss the many issues that have come to mind throughout my trip e.g. how has the COPMI programme impacted on the identification of young carers and why is Crossing Bridges targeted primarily at adult mental health workers rather than the broader workforce as in the UK etc.

Kangaroos in the Blue Mountains

Just a brief post today I’m afraid as tomorrow I need to set off early to join the bus taking young carers on the three hour trip south to Camp Djanaba, a camp run by Young Carers NSW. I have been promised a sighting of a wombat at camp – how exciting. There will be no internet connection now, possibly until I return to the UK, but I will post an update when I can.

View of Manly from Shelly Bay

Another busy day

2010-09-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

Next stop, Gladesville, which is north west of Sydney and where the offices of The Schizophrenia Fellowship are found. Now an intrepid traveller, I set out by train and a couple of buses to find out more about ‘On Fire!’, the camps and services that are delivered by The Schizophrenia Trust for COPMI young carers as part of the Family and Carers Mental Health Programme.

‘On Fire!’ began its development around ten years ago when Nicolas Yeo decided to use his own experiences to improve the lives of children and young people who lived with the impact of a family member’s mental ill health. Central to the development was Nicolas’s belief that what helps children is an opportunity to builds on strengths rather than to dwell on difficulties or to pathologise. His premise has meant that the camps have a slightly different angle to Camp Kookaburra and Young Carers NSW.

Over the last decade ‘On Fire!’ has continued to grow, moving on from the provision of camps alone to the addition of fun days and currently to a more comprehensive service which provides various options for ongoing 1:1 or group support. The camps incorporate issues such as well-being literacy including mental health literacy and peer to peer support, these being delivered through child friendly activities rather than through chat groups.

Whilst in Australia I have been really taken by the great number of volunteers contributing to service delivery and by the quality of those volunteers, many of whom are highly skilled. On completing camp around 25% of young carers go on to take up support provided by a bank of 200 volunteers using a model centred on life coaching. Young carers can opt for facilitated group tele-chats where they can maintain the links made on camp, fortnightly groups or 1:1 tele life coaching.

A great place to stop for lunch: the beautiful Queen Victoria Building

Now head back to the city and then off across the Sydney Harbour Bridge for the walk to Neutral Bay where I wanted to visit an organisation called Holyoake.

Queen Victoria Building - again

Holyoake is the biggest NGO in Western Australia where it began life in the 80’s supporting people affected by a family member’s alcohol or drug use. Holyoake in Neutral Bay runs groups for both children and adult carers; the children’s programme being called ‘Kaleidoscope’. The link between mental ill health and substance misuse is well documented and it is not surprising that many of the young carers that we see back in Gloucestershire are impacted by both. Sydney is no different and Holyoake, with the support of ARAFMI, has responded to this through the recent development of a co-morbidity group which they have piloted for a group of children. Of course so many of the issues and messages are the same; ‘I didn’t cause it, I can’t fix it’, knowing what you can and can’t change, identifying roles and feelings, communication, safety etc. Some creative ideas have been used to help children to begin to understand quite complex issues such as using single coloured sweets and multi coloured ‘allsorts’ to try and make sense of the inter-relation between mental illness and substance use.

To finish the day off I popped back into the COPMI young carer’s holiday programme which I have attended over the last two days and where the children were being led in dramatic and musical activity by a member of Opera Australia. What fun! I am very much looking forward to the final show in front of parents although I think that I will miss the children asking me to say ‘Gloucestershire’ over and over again, which they seem to find very humorous. They are all proficient in spelling both Gloucestershire and Worcestershire now!

Ken Done has re-interpreted Captain Cook and has re-dressed Queen Victoria as part of Sydney Statues Project with Art & About.

Off to Milson's Point

2010-09-28T04:39:00.000-07:00

COPMI trip to Luna Park

The view from Bradfield Park

Bradfield Park Wellbeing Centre is in a great locality with views through the arches of Sydney Harbour Bridge to The Opera House and the city. It is also the venue for a holiday programme for children who have a parent with a mental illness who is being supported by mental health services. The programme is run by the COPMI Mental Health Prevention Worker from CAMHS, who with another hat on is also the FAMI (Families Affected by Mental Illness) & Young Carers Project Officer for Northern Sydney Carer Support Service. Well, the two roles do go pretty well together.

The COPMI art class

Having crossed the Harbour Bridge by train (another real treat) I have spent the last two days helping out at the group and getting to know the staff, activity facilitators and of course the most important people, the children. It’s been a great opportunity to both chat more informally with The COPMI workers and to share resources and ideas. We have had some really interesting discussions covering all sorts of issues such as the need for long term support for many of these children in order to prevent inter-generational problems, prescribed vs. more fluid programmes of support and whether identifying ‘COPMI’ children has an impact on recognizing children and young people as young carers; all big subjects that need to be considered when planning and developing services.

.... and just to end today's post, sadly I do not have a photo of the horribly large cocroach that made its presence known to me today but here are a couple of images to remind you of how close you are to nature in Australia.

On the beach

Shark net

Heading out of Sydney

2010-09-25T04:17:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's me!

You might need to sit down with a cup of coffee or three as I’ve got quite a lot to catch up on.

So what have I been up to since my last post? If you have been keeping up with the blog you won’t be surprised that I’ve been pretty busy. Over the last week I have travelled south of Sydney to Stanwell Tops with Camp Kookaburra, west to Parramatta to attend the COPMI Network meeting and then north to the Central Coast where I met with three different agencies. It’s a bit damp and shark infested to the east so I have avoided that direction. I have swung from a giant swing (check out Stanwell Tops Giant Swing on You Tube for some footage of just how giant this swing is), travelled along the beautiful Hawkesbury River by train and achieved one of my life long desires to see whales out at sea – what a treat!

I’ll start with Camp Kookaburra. The camp, initially the idea of Diane Madden is run by a N.G.O. and it aims to give children who live with the impact of a family member’s mental ill health both a break and an opportunity to learn about mental health and mental illness and to access further support after the camp if needed. Around forty 8-12 year olds attended, most of whom had never met and had not been on camp before. At this age the children really do need some good support and a sense of security on arriving at camp. This is achieved by having a very high staff/volunteer to child ratio enabling the children to be linked with two or three adults who will remain there primary links throughout the camp. The vast majority of leaders are volunteers, many from related disciplines such as child protection, youth work and mental health, are highly skilled however some volunteers had little or no experience of working with children and young people and were there to learn. Chat groups were run each morning in small ‘cabin’ groups, the children, assisted by a group facilitator, working through pre-prepared work books addressing issues related to the impact of living with a family member who has a mental illness. These booklets were then taken home by the children at the end of the camp.

Volunteers are expected to attend a training day prior to the camp and are provided with a detailed handbook covering everything from the camp programme to risk assessment and child protection. Less experienced leaders are matched with more experienced colleagues and any issues that they feel unable to deal with are referred back to the two camp counsellors. The counsellors are also there to support any of the leaders who may need this and to assess whether any of the young campers need further support after the camp and to refer on to appropriate agencies.

Having worked with young carers for many years I was amazed at the level of understanding that my small group of ten year old girls had about mental illness. Their familiarity with mental health terminology on arrival at camp was beyond that which I have experienced with similar groups in the UK however I cannot say whether this was typical of all the campers. On asking my group where they got their information from, most said from their families but one responded that her dad’s psychiatrist had given her lots of information.

No space to tell you about all the really fun stuff that we got up to but suffice to say that the children and adults had a great time.

The following morning I was up with the cockatoos and lorikeets and off to western Sydney to attend the COPMI (Children of Parents with Mental Illness) Network meeting and also to meet with a training officer from the NSW Institute of Psychiatry who deliver ‘Crossing Bridges’ training here. My huge thanks need to go to all those present at the Network meeting for spending the best part of the morning bringing me up to speed on how COPMI operates in each locality and advising me on recent strategic developments such as implementing the newly published NSW COPMI Framework and plans to develop a COPMI clinic. Not surprisingly practice is diverse across localities, some practitioners engaging in direct work, others focussing more on capacity building, awareness raising and advice. Some examples would include assistance with completing the Family Focussed Assessment, close links with inpatient wards particularly when a parent is being discharged and working across inpatient and community mental health teams, supported play groups for parents with a mental illness, psycho-educational programmes, telephone support, improving identification of children and young people, parenting groups, joint home visits with adult mental health workers, attending clinical reviews, working with school counsellors and training. Wouldn’t it be great if all these happened in all localities? Sadly human beings and organisations have their limitations. Still, plenty more food for thought for when I return to the UK. COPMI does have a fantastic range of information and resources which is free so that is something to celebrate.

Terry's Whales

As luck would have it I was then able to thumb a lift from the meeting up to Central Coast where I was to spend several days meeting with a range of professionals and where I also got the opportunity to meet a group of young people whose parents experience mental ill health. My home for this period was with two people to whom I am most grateful, Marion who works with COPMI children and her husband Terry who is a Churchill Fellow who undertook his travels looking at woodturning techniques across several continents some years ago.

First to ARAFMI Kincumber, a N.G.O. which works with families impacted by mental illness by supporting all family members. ARAFMI kind of felt like home. My introduction to the organisation came in the form of their AGM through which I found a very similar history and many similar issues experienced by my own work place, Gloucestershire Young Carers. Their team, like ours, are passionate about their work and feel enormous pride in the work they do. Their priority is to respond directly to the needs of the families that they work which may at times create a mis-match with funding steams. They too need to find the time and resources to apply for competitive tenders and funding from within a small team.

Much of my time was spent with the Young ARAFMI practitioner who employs great flexibility within her work in order to meet the individual needs of young people impacted by a family member’s mental ill health. This might include sand therapy sessions with individual children, sibling groups or parent and child in addition to group sessions which are primarily for fun but also have a therapeutic underpinning. This work is either undertaken in schools or within a mental health / youth work ‘cottage’

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I have been amazed at the number of programmes developed for use with this group of children and young people and it was at my next stop, the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Team at Y Central in Gosford where I managed to get a look at a number of these. Here is a selection:

PATS (Paying Attention to Self) is a peer support group for children and young people who have a parent with mental health issues, which is co-facilitated by a young person who has previously undertaken the programme.

SKIPS is a programme for children in primary schools providing information about mental health and mental illness.

KIDZ Club is a supportive and educative group for primary school aged children who have a parent or relative living with a diagnosed mental illness.

SMILES: simplifying mental illness plus life enhancement skills (originally developed by ARAFMI), a program for children aged 8-12 or young people aged 13-16 who have a mother, father, brother or sister experiencing a mental health problem.

Most of these programmes run for 8 weeks although SMILES was developed as a programme to be run over three days. It will take me a while to digest all the information and to assess the differences between these and our own group developed at Gloucestershire Young Carers called ‘Us Too’ (soon to be available as part of the Princes Royal Trust for Carers, Young Carers Tool Kit).

Thanks to Y Central for spending time advising me about their youth participation work and their fabulous website which is the responsibility of their e-cyp mental health worker. Amongst many other things young people can access non-crisis support by email and hopefully in the near future will be able to access e-counselling.

Finally, a chance meeting led to an invitation to check out the fantastic transitions work being undertaken by Central Coast Youth Connections. A trip out to a project known as Green Central at Mt Penang was just extraordinary. The organisation gives comprehensive support to young people who are disengaged with school providing them through various means with quality work placements and alternative schooling. Not satisfied with running their own radio station they have gone on to use a social enterprise model to develop Green Central. Young people are trained in practical skills such as brick laying and are then employed in building Green Central. The site, which is being built by the disengaged young people to the highest environmental standards will include a conference centre, alternative school, cafe, permaculture area, bush tucker educational walk, workshop, plant nursery and state of the art TV studio.

That brings us up to today. I have spent the day undertaking volunteer training for the Carers NSW Young Carers camp which I will be attending towards the end of my trip. Perhaps I should save the details until another day so that you can get on with whatever else you need to be doing.

Terrigal where I watched whales flipping their tail fins and spoutng water

Images from my morning walk prior to heading off to camp a couple of days ago

2010-09-19T02:38:00.000-07:00

2010-09-16T03:14:00.000-07:00

O.K. a long post today as I may not be able to post again for a few days.

The Sydney Conention Centre

Well, I couldn’t let the FaPMI (Families where a parent has a mental illness)team from Victoria head home without pinning them down for some serious questioning so off I went this morning, back to the conference centre, head and note book brimming over with lists of things not to forget to ask. What works in achieving changes in practice was really the nub of the exchange, the approach that FaPMI is taking being to use the COMPI e-training resource to train ‘champions’ who form agency task groups who can effect change within their agencies. In the UK we are awaiting the new SCIE e-training package which is currently being developed.

They have also done some great work in surveying the attitudes of adult mental health workers giving them a pretty good picture of the current ‘state of play’. Anyway, big thanks to the team for giving me some interesting ideas and certainly some food for thought to take home with me.

Before I leap on to the rest of the day I’m just going to back track a bit to yesterday’s workshops. A couple of workshops that I forgot to mention in my earlier posts but which may be of interest to those working with carers. Care Assist and Remind presented information about a modular training course that they have developed for carers entitled ‘Assisting Families’. It’s highly flexible, can be used with individuals or in groups and in pretty well any environment (e.g. Pamper Days / training sessions). It got me thinking about the potential to develop it for young carers.

Then on the issue of parenting, Central Coast Children and Young People’s Mental Health Service presented their work in auditing the number of adults using mental health services who are parents.

Now let’s whizz off, away from Cockle Bay, past the Chinese Garden, via Paddy’s Market (to buy my superhero outfit – more about that later) to my next appointment with the Young Carers NSW. What a great bunch of people – well that is if you can call three a ‘bunch’ and what a great view of Sydney they have from their 18^th floor office. Now we in Gloucestershire think that we work in a rural locality but let me tell you, we haven’t got a clue. The team here cover the whole of NSW and have 3000 young carers on their books. Where we in Gloucestershire spend endless hours arranging volunteer drivers and taxis (thanks to Sue and the team) they book 8 year olds onto flights. Not surprisingly we work in quite different ways, the team here organising camps for 60 at a time plus providing art therapy whilst advising young people of any activities for young carers that are happening in their localities and keeping in contact through newsletters and their website etc. Of course we stumbled across many similar issues such as the difficulty in identifying young carers in schools although this is the third meeting where I have been told that there has been a big increase in referrals from school counsellors here. The team gave me some great resources to bring back to the UK including some fantastic books for children caring for a family member with cancer. (That box to be posted home is getting bigger by the day).

Well tomorrow it’s time for a change. My head is full to the brim so I am really looking forward to heading off to Stanwell Tops with Camp Kookaburra. (Those of you who know me well may be surprised to hear this!) I must remember to pack that superhero outfit as instructed, oh and of course my ‘swimmers’.

I will barely touch the ground after camp before heading off to Parramatta on Monday morning and then straight on to Central Coast on Monday evening to check out some services there for a few days. I’ll post to the blog if I manage to get access to the internet but if not, I’ll post again in a week or so.

A friend of mine

By the way, top tip of the day: do not wear new shoes when walking around the city.

The MHS Conference

2010-09-15T05:11:00.000-07:00

The poster session

Wow! When it rains in Sydney, it really rains. Last night brought with it thunder lightning and bucket loads of rain and when was it that I was supposed to fit in some sleep? I’m not sure that I fully appreciated just how busy I would be out here in Australia or how many interesting people I would come across. I have been at the MHS Conference at Darling Harbour in Sydney over the last couple of days and in addition to meeting some of the people that I have been exchanging emails with during the planning stages I have also made several new contacts and squeezed in some extra appointments. I can’t possibly begin to list all the informative workshops that I managed to attend but I guess that some of the highlights would include Eva Cox’s thought provoking session on ‘The Social Context of Caring’, Key Developments from the Victorian FaPMI (Families where a Parent has a Mental Illness) Service Development Strategy and the Keynote Speech by Anthony D. Mancini on Infusing Recovery Principles into Public Policy. My head and notebook are awash with information and I have begun to recognise that I will probably have to send a bundle of information home by post.

Please note blogging skills progressing! Two small photos on this post and larger font.

Out to the suburbs

2010-09-13T04:02:00.000-07:00

What a good day I have had today. I’ve been out and about on buses and trains in order to meet two really interesting people, firstly to the city centre to meet the coordinator of Camp Kookaburra and then way out into the suburbs to meet The ‘Gaining Ground’ Program Manager.

Camp Kookaburra, a N.G.O. runs camps which are a mix of fun and ‘chat groups’ for children who live with a family member with a mental illness. There is a really high staff to child ratio of 1:2 or 3 and the team includes camp counsellors and chat group coordinators in addition to the volunteer youth workers. Children tend to come along year after year and some have now become volunteer leaders themselves. I’ll report more next week as I have been invited to join them on their next camp which runs from Friday until Sunday.

‘Gaining Ground’ is an ICAMHS (Infant and Child Mental Health Services) project which has been running for some years. Whilst also offering camps to children with the same issues as Camp Kookaburra, the project takes a different approach. Children and young people are offered three camps per year for as many years as they wish to attend, up to the age of 18. The Program Manager also undertakes some casework which takes a family approach whilst focusing specifically on the young carer. She works closely with mental health wards and can become involved when a parent is discharged from hospital – something that I think that I will look to develop when back in Gloucestershire.

More from ‘Gaining Ground when I go back to visit later during my trip.

Both projects receive most of their referrals from school counsellors and health services.

A photo per blog is what I have been taught by my young friend Issy so here is one from yesterday’s Bondi Beach Kite Festival.

Arriving in Sydney

2010-09-11T06:19:00.000-07:00

I made a new friend yesterday, well not so much a friend as a companion in fear. The flight went well, in fact much better than I thought it would however the landing in Sydney would have tested the nerves of even the most enthusiastic flyer. Thick white fog smothered Sydney Airport as we circled above, the pilot no doubt considering whether his skills and the planes technical abilities were up to the job. Lower and lower we flew, down into the murky depths, the plane jolting from side to side, until moments before touch down the pilot aborted the landing, furiously revving all the engines, willing the aircraft back up into the sky. It was at this moment that my neighbour and I made a real connection, inseparable partners in fear, ’friends’; a friendship that would grow as we returned for a second attempt at landing ten minutes later.

On terra firma things seemed so much better, in particular the knowledge that nearly all other flights had been re-routed to Melbourne, our pilot and plane no doubt being ‘a cut above the others’.

Weary and jet lagged from the long journey, I was relieved to be picked up from the airport by Jason, an old friend who I have seen only once in 30 years. After a rapid introduction to his family we then spent the day trying to find ways to keep me awake. A trip to see Sydney Opera House, lunch in a cafe on Bondi Beach and then checking in to my small apartment just about doing the trick at least until sundown.

Five days until departure

2010-09-03T02:43:00.000-07:00

Well, months of planning and now I am just about ready to head off to Australia. My plan is to meet up with a whole range of services in Sydney and NSW over the next four weeks to really get a good understanding of how children, who live in families where a parent experiences mental ill health, are supported. Many of these children are young carers and they are taking on levels of emotional or practical support that most adults would struggle to cope with. Services in the UK have historically been directed at the young people themselves and there is no doubt that they do need time away from their responsibilities to address the many issues that they face. Over the last few years however we have really begun to listen to what young carers have been telling us all along and that is 'the best thing that you can do to help me is to help my mum / dad'. Recognising the needs of the family as a whole is crucial to meeting the needs of young carers and at Gloucestershire Young Carers we are keen to develop services that really make a difference.

I have had a fantastic response from colleagues in Australia who have offered me a huge range of opportunities, from meeting the people that really matter by attending camps and activities for the young people and by visiting families in their homes to learning about professional networks, training, policy and strategic developments.

I'm sure that I will use this blog not only to share my experiences but also to air my own views, developed over many years of working with young carers and their families. I hope to return to the UK with new ideas and perspectives which can influence service development here.

Hopefully my next message will come from Sydney next week. Speak to you then.