Family Information and Skills Sessions – East Metropolitan Youth Unit: a WA Health Excellence Award Finalist

At EMHS we are committed to delivering health care services that are responsive to the needs of the EMHS community, while recognising the value in collaborating with our service providers, consumers, and their loved ones to ensure better health outcomes and recovery-focused care.

The East Metropolitan Youth Unit (EMyU) – a 12- bed acute inpatient psychiatric service for young people aged 16-24 – was recently recognised as a finalist in the 2019 WA Health Excellence Awards for supporting families, carers and loved ones to develop the skills and knowledge to assist with the mental health recovery of our young consumers.

An important factor in ongoing recovery with a mental illness is the community environment and social network. Families and support people can play an important role in a young person’s mental health recovery.

Often during a young person’s first contact with formal mental health services, families, carers and other support people do not always feel knowledgeable, skilled or confident in supporting the young person due to unfamiliarity with the service.

The EMyU Family Information and Skills Sessions were developed in response to this service gap with regular sessions developed to provide coping skills and a shared experience for families/support people. The sessions are facilitated by the Allied Health Team and aim to positively impact on the mental health recovery and quality of life of a young person.

The program is proving to have a positive impact on the service experience of families and support people. A reduction in readmission rates indicates it is also contributing to mental health recovery and overall wellbeing of consumers.