International Expert on Mental Health To Visit Tasmania

An international expert on empowering people to recover their mental health will visit Tasmania later this week (28 and 29 May).

Dr Rachel Perkins OBE, BA, MPhil (Clinical Psychology), PhD, OBE has been a key adviser to the UK Government on mental health service design with a particular focus on enabling service users to direct their own care.

She has been invited to the state to share her experiences by one of Tasmania’s largest specialist mental health organisations, RFT (Richmond Fellowship Tasmania).

Chief Executive of RFT, Danny Sutton said: ”We are delighted to have a world class expert come to Tasmania to share her ideas and practical solutions which involve putting people at the centre of their mental health recovery.”

Dr Perkins has written and spoken widely about recovery and social inclusion for people with mental health conditions, set up the first UK Recovery College, and has pioneered the UK development of programmes to help people with mental health difficulties to access employment.

She will conduct a two day workshop for people in the mental health sector providing advice and guidance in the development of practical skills to deliver mental health programs more focused on recovery.

The workshop will be held in the C3 Complex in South Hobart and will be attended by 80 people from across the state.

With a background in Clinical Psychology, Rachel Perkins worked in NHS Mental Health Services for over 30 years. Formerly Director of Quality Assurance and User Experience at South West London and St. George’s Mental Health NHS Trust, she is now:

• A senior consultant with the UK ‘Implementing Recovery through Organisational Change’ programme (a national initiative to help mental health providers to become more recovery-focused in their delivery by a partnership between the NHS Confederation and Centre for Mental Health).
• Chair of the UK Department of Health Working Group on Equalities in Mental Health.
• Chair of the Office for Disability Issues ’Fulfilling Potential’ Disability Strategy Stakeholder Forum.
• Member of the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission Disability Committee.
• Member of the UK Mental Health Strategy Ministerial Advisory Group.
• Member of the UK Government Psychological Wellbeing and Work Expert Advisory Group.
• Co-editor of ’Merntal Health and Social Inclusion’ Journal.

She lives and works with a long term mental health condition and is a member of National Mind External Relations Committee. In 2010 she was voted Mind Champion of the Year and awarded an OBE for services to mental health.

From 2011 to 2013 she was chair of Equality 2025, the UK cross Government strategic advisory group of disability issues, and continues to advise the UK Office for Disability Issues. She has written and spoken widely about recovery and social inclusion for people with mental health conditions, set up the first UK Recovery College and has pioneered the UK development of programmes to help people with mental health difficulties to access employment based on the ‘Individual Placement with Support’ approach, including one designed to increase employment opportunities within mental health services for people who have themselves experienced mental health problems. In 2009 she was commissioned by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to lead an independent review into how Government might better support people with mental health problems to gain work and prosper in employment. (Realising ambitions: Better employment support for people with a mental health condition, DWP, December 2009).

She has provided training and consultancy nationally and internationally, most recently in Australia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Republic of Ireland. The employment programmes she developed have been cited as an example of good practice by Zero Project 2013 International Study On The Implementation of the UN Convention on The Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She is the co-editor (with Julie Repper) of the journal Mental Health and Social Inclusion and co-authored, with Julie Repper, is Social Inclusion and Recovery: A Model for Mental Health Practice (2003, Balliere Tindall). She has written briefing papers on Recovery Colleges and Personalisation and Recovery (Centre for Mental Health/ImROC, 2012), and the The Team Recovery Implementation Plan: a framework for creating recovery-focused services (Centre for Mental Health/NHS Confederation/ImROC, 2013) and has contibuted to a briefing paper on Peer Support Workers (Centre for Mental Health/NHS Confederation/ImROC, 2013).
Ruth Sinclair People and Culture Manager Richmond Fellowship Tasmania Inc.