18 October 2010
FAMILY FRIENDLY MENTAL HEALTH UNIT WINS NATIONAL AWARD
Joondalup Health Campus has tonight taken home the 2010 APHA/Baxter Award for Quality and Excellence – Ambulatory Care Award for their innovative Family Friendly Initiative in their mental health unit.
The Joondalup Mental Health Unit has taken a leading role in ensuring that the unit is set up to support and enable parents to continue their parenting role while receiving treatment as an inpatient. Traditionally, children were not included in the care plan for parents receiving inpatient treatment for mental illness.
The unit provides support for the patients and their visiting children and guests. The unit boasts family visiting rooms in open and secure environments, toys, books and courtyard with play panels. The Family Friendly Initiative has enabled the patients at the Joondalup Health Campus to better understand the importance of continuing their parenting role despite their mental illness.
“It is difficult to be a parent at the best of times,” said Michael Roff, APHA Chief Executive Officer. “But if a patient is receiving treatment for mental illness, it can be near impossible. This innovative program at Joondalup Health Campus is leading the way in helping patients meet the challenges of parenting with mental illness.”
Children of parents with a mental illness are two to three times more likely to experience significant social, emotional, behavioural and mental health disorders during childhood, adolescence and adulthood. This is often related to the psychosocial consequences of mental illness, such as stigma, social isolation and relationship breakdown, rather than the symptoms of the illness itself.
Joondalup’s program gives children clear, age-appropriate information that explains mental illness and provides activities and family friendly areas that are non-clinical so that families can spend time together while the parent is an inpatient.
The aim of this award which was presented this evening at the Hilton Sydney, is to recognize those private hospital facilities nationally that have excelled in the provision of clinical treatment and demonstrated excellence in patient care in an ambulatory care setting. Other award categories and winners were: St Andrew’s Hospital Adelaide won the APHA/Baxter Award for Clinical Excellence for quality of care and patient outcomes. Tamara Private won the 2010 APHA/Baxter Award for Community Involvement. Sydney Adventist Hospital won a Special Recognition Award for Excellence in Service Provision to International Communities for its HealthCare Outreach Program.
Media contact for interviews with the winners or more background on any of their winning projects: Lisa Ramshaw, APHA Director, Communications & Marketing on 0413 971 999
APHA Awards for Quality and Excellence are sponsored by Baxter Health Care
