Mental Health Submission Process

HI everyone, here is the official website for the Metal Health Inquiry https://www.dia.govt.nz/Mental-Health---About-the-Inquiry

You will notice that they are willing to meet with interested groups. We should therefore be able to arrange to be heard at a hui as an interested group, presumably. However, I sent an email asking to be kept informed about when the consultation document will be released (step one) and have only received an automated response with a "we'll get in touch soon". That was almost a week ago. This is the web-page about how to connect with what they are doing: https://www.dia.govt.nz/Mental-Health-Inquiry---Questions-and-Answers#Connecting

You can also read about the terms of reference that have been set for the inquiry and its scope on this web-page too.

Hi All, this email received today from DIA:
Tēna koutou katoa, Talofa lava and warm Pacific greetings
You are receiving this email because you or your organisation has expressed an interest in engaging with the Government Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction (the Inquiry), or your organisation has been identified as having a potential interest in our work. Please forward this email on to your networks and anyone else who you think may want to find out more information about the Inquiry.
As you may be aware, on 31 January 2018, the Government established an Inquiry into mental health and addiction and we are now well underway. The ultimate goal of the Inquiry is to improve the mental health and addiction outcomes of New Zealanders. The Inquiry is wide ranging: we have been asked to look at how we promote and support good mental health in
New Zealand, and the support and services currently in place to respond to the needs of people experiencing mental health and addiction challenges, including people affected by suicide.
We want to provide a clear direction for the future that generates hope and supports communities, providers and government to take action.
This email provides an overall update on where we are at and our next steps.
Our Terms of Reference require us to complete a stocktake of programmes and services in place to promote and support mental health wellbeing, as well as support for those with mental health and addiction challenges. This stocktake will help us understand what is in place, and where the gaps and problems are.
The Inquiry has begun a broad stocktake of existing research, reports, data, and other information that has already been produced in this area. We are also working with a range of government and non-government agencies to better understand the sector and the services and support already in place. We will be going further than government, and wider than just the health sector, as we undertake this stocktake.
Secondly, the Inquiry panel has been giving some thought to how we can engage with interested parties in a way that ensures everyone can have their say.
Listening well to a wide range of communities and stakeholders is important for our Inquiry. The panel members want to hear from everyone, including service users, their families/ whanau, service providers, advocates, sector groups, and experts. We want to hear all ideas – big or small, specific or broad, innovative or building on what’s already happening.
To ensure we hear as many perspectives as possible, the panel members have decided that rather than establish small advisory groups, we will instead engage directly and widely with stakeholder groups and attend forums, hui and fono across the country. Panel members are meeting with interested groups and are very keen to hear from other groups and individuals who want to share their thoughts with us. This includes directly reaching out to, and engaging with Māori, Pacific peoples, young people, people with disabilities, LGBTIQA+ groups, people living in rural communities, the elderly, veterans, minority, immigrant and refugee populations, victims of violence and people in correctional facilities. To do this well, we seek advice from groups on how they want to be engaged with.
We are in the final stages of preparing a consultation document. This will be very short and focused, and in many formats, including large text and easy read, and in multiple languages. We will support the document with web-based audio recordings and videos featuring sign language. We want it to be as accessible as possible and welcome ideas from people on other ways we can improve accessibility.
We encourage you to share your views in any format you want; written or otherwise. We intend to establish an 0800 line that people can call to share their views, and social media forums will also be available. Schools and other groups will be invited to provide video or pictorial submissions.
We encourage stakeholder groups to hold their own meetings to discuss views and support their members and wider networks to make group or individual submissions.

The consultation document will be released in mid-April, but you don’t need to wait until then to share your thoughts. Feel free to email us at [email protected] at any time. Information provided via email will be considered and analysed as part of the consultation process. We thank everyone who has already shared information with us.
The panel members will also be travelling around New Zealand for a series of regional meetings to talk to people from a range of backgrounds and views, to hear your ideas for improvements. The dates for these regional meetings will soon be confirmed. We will publish the details on the Inquiry website (www.mentalhealth.inquiry.govt.nz). We will also directly communicate these details to all those who have indicated an interest in engaging with the Panel.
We ask everyone with an interest in the Inquiry to record their interest and tell us how you would ideally like us to engage with you. An online form will be available from next week (week starting 9 April 2018) that people can complete (see www.mentalhealth.inquiry.govt.nz) or please email ([email protected]).
Please also tell everyone you meet about the Inquiry! While we are developing contact-lists, drawing on the advice of many we have engaged with already, we want to be sure we provide all interested people and groups the opportunity to contribute. So encourage people to contact us, or tell us who you think we need to engage with. We would rather go too wide than miss people.
For those of you working on the ground – keep implementing changes – don’t wait for us. We look forward to learning about what’s happening when we travel the country!
Nāū te mahi nāku te mahi ka ora ai te iwi
Ron Paterson
Inquiry Chair

Thanks for sharing Tash. Sounds like things are going to be cranking into gear shortly. Two things that stand out from this are that they seem quite open to different ways of submitting, and are keen to go and physically meet with different groups, attend hui, etc, and that the first action point for us is to register our interest and how they want us to engage with them.

Questions:
* How does this fit with the usual submissions process in your experience Tash? I was under the impression that in the past they've relied more on written submissions and reports. Is this different than the invitation has been in the past? And if so how would we ideally want to engage? (I'm thinking a hui and a report combo perhaps?)
* A broader question is that if we are submitting our interest in submitting to the inquiry, who are "we"? I have some reservations about submitting on behalf of Mindfulness for Change, because our kaupapa is more about bringing people together and nurturing a diverse array of opinions and ways of making change, and so I don't know if it would fit for us to make a submission on behalf of what is a diverse community. I wonder if the Mindful Aotearoa brand would be better placed to make submissions of this kind? Or a different entity entirely?

Thanks Tash. I have the same questions to as Nick on this. Also If we think hui is one good way to engage should we try to engineer this as part of the Auckland MfC hui in Raglan or as Nick suggests keep this under a different umbrella? Look forward to your insights.

1. I think the approach they are taking is an attempt to be more broadly representative, responsive and 'modern' than the standard written submissions with 15 minutes to be heard by committee process. I think this is a good thing.
2. The Mindful Aotearoa brand is owned by the Mental Health Foundation of NZ (MHF) and is currently dormant. It won't work to use this brand for this purpose at this point in time.
3. I think the inquiry members would be open to hearing from members of MfC, but I don't know if they would attend your hui on a weekend. You could try inviting them, but that would need to be managed separately from MEG involvement as we cant be at that Hui and that would be much broader comments/suggestions than what MEG would engage in.
4. Because we haven't seen the consultation document yet, we don't have an agreed approach about what we would be submitting on. E.g. MEG will want to submit on very specific points. Other MfC people will have other ideas and there could be a large number of wide-ranging submission points coming from MfC folk.
5. I suggest that MEG writes a submission about what we would like to see form the inquiry and shares that with people on this forum and wider MfC / stakeholders to invite letters/signatures of support.
6. If people on this forum would like to make other submissions different from MEG's, I am happy to provide guidance on a case by case basis, and/or I can make suggestions to this forum about some useful topics for submission once we see the consultation document.
7. I agree that there isn't a suitable 'we' for us to meet with the inquiry committee as. Those of us on this forum might have different things that they would want to talk with to the committee other than MEG's objective. I am happy to invite people from this forum to come along to a meeting between the inquiry committee and MEG if that happens. I would advise attending public hui rather than trying to get the committe to come to a new entity that doesn't currently exist, has no clear mandate, no agreed points that are being sought form this inquiry. But I do encourage sharing written submissions and providing support for each others submissions.
8. Happy to discuss further as there is a lot of different thoughts here and I am not actually sure who in this forum is wanting to actively engage in this process and in what way.

Thanks for this Tash. I agree on your suggestion in 5 and 6 here. I agree with your point in 7 that there is not currently a suitable "we" for us to meet with the inquiry committee as, and don't feel that creating a new entity for the purpose of submitting to this process.

Personally, I feel that the best way for me to contribute is to offer my assistance to MEG's submission, if that would be helpful. I also plan to offer my assistance to Peerzone's submission process, who will be making a submission on peer mental health, service user involvement in the mental health sector, and transitioning to a community-led model of mental health (away from a medical-first model).

https://www.mentalhealth.inquiry.govt.nz The consultation document is out

Planning to have a Zoom call from 12.30-2.00pm on Thursday 3rd May (this week) to discuss next steps. Here's a doc with a proposed vision and action points to start the discussion - feel free to comment with suggestions and ideas: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PC-BePMGlvPjFuRdIyVNOsuD8DWY0e_WAJrD2kevsOI/edit?usp=sharing Let me know if you'd like to join the Zoom call, want to keep it fairly focused but also open to more people coming in.