The last 12 months have been sig­nif­i­cant for the Men­tal Health and Well­be­ing team, with over 57 Well­be­ing Work­shops deliv­ered to over 1,400 rur­al and remote health workers. 

In pro­vid­ing these work­shops, it is clear that par­tic­i­pants have appre­ci­at­ed 30 to 40 min­utes to reflect on their own well­be­ing and be remind­ed, even if for a short time, of the impor­tance of self-care and look­ing after themselves. 

Our ser­vice evo­lu­tion which began in July 2021 is com­plete and we con­tin­ue to look for oppor­tu­ni­ties and ini­tia­tives to meet the remote health workforce’s men­tal health and well­be­ing needs.

We have deliv­ered enhanced secu­ri­ty and record keep­ing sys­tems, poli­cies and pro­ce­dures in the back­ground, to ensure our ser­vices are con­tem­po­rary and align with best practice.

The most vis­i­ble of these is the Men­tal Health and Well­be­ing Pri­va­cy Pol­i­cy pub­lished on the CRANAplus web­site in April 2022. The Pol­i­cy describes how we col­lect, hold, use and dis­close your per­son­al infor­ma­tion and should be read togeth­er with our Men­tal Health and Well­be­ing Ser­vice Charter.

Bring­ing the team together

We wel­comed the oppor­tu­ni­ty for Bush Sup­port Line Ser­vice providers to come togeth­er in June 2022 for a two-day train­ing and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment ses­sion. These providers are the incred­i­ble peo­ple who you will talk with if you ever call the Bush Sup­port Line.

This was the first chance for our ser­vice providers, who live and work across Aus­tralia, to meet face to face and share their knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence in sup­port­ing our rur­al and remote health work­force through our 24/7 tele­phone sup­port line.

I have worked and col­lab­o­rat­ed with the psy­chol­o­gists who ser­vice the Bush Sup­port Line now for over twelve months. I can con­fi­dent­ly say they are a pas­sion­ate group of indi­vid­u­als that bring con­sid­er­able knowl­edge, expe­ri­ence and an ongo­ing com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing the rur­al and remote health work­force and the chal­lenges they face. They have diverse expe­ri­ences in the sec­tor and use this expe­ri­ence to pro­vide a cru­cial and well-respect­ed service.

Sup­port­ing families

There is a lot of evi­dence emerg­ing of the impact of the pan­dem­ic on health work­ers and the emo­tion­al toll of work­ing in health care, with rarely a moment to reflect on their experiences. 

Numer­ous fac­tors con­tribute to ele­vat­ed stress among health care work­ers, includ­ing heavy work­loads, long shifts, a high pace, lack of phys­i­cal or psy­cho­log­i­cal safe­ty, chronic­i­ty of care, moral con­flicts and work-place relat­ed bul­ly­ing or lack of social support.

There is less evi­dence avail­able on the impact on health work­ers’ fam­i­lies. The Bush Sup­port Line is avail­able to part­ners, par­ents, adult chil­dren or those who sup­port health work­ers con­tin­u­ing their vital work in our rur­al and remote communities. 

So, remem­ber the num­ber (1800 805 391) and share with your fam­i­ly. Con­tact us for some resources (pens, notepads) that can be tak­en home or left in places fam­i­ly mem­bers can see. Fam­i­ly mem­bers may not be expe­ri­enc­ing the same stres­sors as direct­ly as the health work­ers are, but everyone’s emo­tion­al health can be adverse­ly impacted.

Fam­i­ly mem­bers might ben­e­fit from talk­ing to some­one that under­stands and can help them nav­i­gate the chal­lenges, pro­vide sup­port and per­haps work on strate­gies to include self-care for all the fam­i­ly, ensur­ing well­be­ing is fac­tored into the dai­ly routine.

Our Self-Care mag­net is designed to sup­port health work­ers imple­ment strate­gies to look after their well­be­ing, and is avail­able for order here or via email to wellbeing@​crana.​org.​au.

New well­be­ing resources

CRANAplus has recent­ly joined the Safe­Side com­mu­ni­ty which offers a best prac­tice and evi­dence-based approach to sui­cide prevention. 

The Bush Sup­port Line is not intend­ed as a cri­sis inter­ven­tion ser­vice, and there­fore we are not often respond­ing to those in crisis. 

How­ev­er, CRANAplus and its Men­tal Health and Well­be­ing Depart­ment are com­mit­ted as a health-relat­ed organ­i­sa­tion to ensure we oper­ate with con­tem­po­rary knowl­edge and best prac­tice in this area. We have recent­ly released the Crit­i­cal Con­ver­sa­tions eLearn­ing course to sup­port those work­ing in rur­al and remote com­mu­ni­ties to feel more con­fi­dent in talk­ing to indi­vid­u­als in cri­sis, whether as a health work­er or in their per­son­al life.

The Men­tal Health and Well­be­ing team are devel­op­ing new con­tent and resources in our new ​‘Well­be­ing for the Bush’ series. The lat­est release is a pod­cast about Sleep, one of the pil­lars of well­be­ing and some­thing we often overlook.

We are also look­ing at deliv­er­ing our resources in a more sus­tain­able way and pro­vid­ing elec­tron­ic copies of our key resources on USB, along with our pop­u­lar ground­ing and relax­ation exer­cis­es, ready to view any­where with­out the need for inter­net connectivity.

We are real­ly look­ing for­ward to pro­vid­ing a Well­be­ing Space at the upcom­ing CRANAplus Con­fer­ence, 4 – 6 Octo­ber 2022, in Adelaide.

Ref­er­ences

1. Green­berg, N., Docher­ty, M., Gnanapra­gasam, S., & Wes­se­ly, S. (2020). Man­ag­ing men­tal health chal­lenges faced by health care work­ers dur­ing covid-19 pan­dem­ic. bmj, 368.
2. Flana­gan E, Chad­wick R, Goodrich J, Ford C, Wick­ens R. Reflec­tion for all health care staff: a nation­al eval­u­a­tion of Schwartz rounds. 
3. J Inter­prof Care 2020;34:140 – 2. doi:10.1080/ 13561820.2019.1636008 pmid:31390225