The Good the bad and the lessons - looking at real life care of Men in the community (129607)
John Milham
1
2
3
- StandBy Connect, Narrabeen, NSW, Australia
- Community Suicide Prevention, Northern Beaches Cares, Narrabeen, NSW, Australia
- Lived Experience Australia, Dee Why, NSW, Australia
- This presentation will be based on personal analysis and reflections generated by working with men who are telling real stories of their experiences. These experiences are shared details of debilitation, disappointment, distress, suffering, overwhelm, incapacity, dysfunction, disconnection, loss and breakdown. These stories come from men of all types and backgrounds and situations, they highlight a surprising range and depth of life impacts and show men who are known to the system or Men who have never shared anything like this to anyone previously and do so because they are desperate.
These stories will be from the front line of Men's situational and mental distress and they offer insight into just how much unaddressed, undocumented and unsupported impact there is to Men's lives in the community.
As someone who is talking to men everyday from a completely non clinical situation, I am interested in comparing how the current care system and the clinical frame used to support Men, actually works, and what, if any gap is highlighted when qualitative and anecdotal input is examined. In looking at the stories from the front line, can we offer any observations and recommendations that should be considered when framing new programs and designing new engagement strategies. And most of all do we have any observations about what practically works with Men, to better deal with the fruits of distress, such as relationship breakdown, domestic and family upheaval, isolation, ill health and of course suicide.
This presentation will summarise some of the lessons learnt after hundreds of conversations, especially about what longer term and more upstream interventions may be possible and scalable and practical.
Most of all this presentation will offer a hint of the voices that are almost never raised in their own need. Men are not always happy collaborators in supporting their own best mental distress interests. As a group advocating for attention, space, and funding, their wheels do not squeak. As research resource slowly turns to some of these psychosocial challenges, on the ground we are shouting out, that we can not afford to wait any longer. There is now a pressing need to take more and different action, and it can be effective, if we listen to the voices that are speaking. On the ground we know that men do share, and if they are given a safe space and a steady ear, these voices can reveal a lot