Guided Tours for Fellowship members? Makes Sense
MI Fellowship is working in partership with the Cunningham Dax Collection to offer MI Fellowship members an exclusive guided tour of the Cunningham Dax Collection's latest exhibition The Art of Making Sense.
The Cunningham Dax Collection consists of more than 12,000 pieces of art that have been created by people with a mental illness that not only offers an insight in the lives of people with a mental illness over time but can also be admired for their artistic merit and beauty.
The Art of Making Sense is the Collection's premiere exhibit for 2008 and features approximately 70 artworks, from drawings on papers through to sculpture and textiles.
The Collection is offering up to 25 MI Fellowship members the opportunity to take a guided tour of The Art of Making Sense on Wednesday 29 October, 11am-12pm.
Because of the limited number of places available, bookings are essential. To ensure your spot, call Hayley on 8486 4220 or via e-mail at membership@mifellowship.org
Tickets cost $8. |
 Carla Krijt,
No title, 1998,
oil on canvas
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October Quarterly Forum - not to be missed!
Following on from the very successful July Members’ Forum, our October Quarterly Forum will explore further some of the complex financial management issues that can arise in families where there is a member with mental illness.
This time the focus will be on credit law; in particular on questions like-
- how does the law protect the financial interests of people with mental illness and their family members, when illness is episodic and access to credit is easy?
- How can family members promote their loved one’s independence and help them to develop the skills to manage financial risk?
This forum will be addressed by representatives from State Trustees and the Consumer Action Law Centre. For further details and registration, have a look at the flyer.
Upcoming Volunteer Information Session
MI Fellowship is holding a volunteer information session for people who have thought about giving their time to support the 1 in 5 Victorians who will experience a mental illness at some point but who are looking for more information before they sign themselves up.
The session will be held at MI Fellowship headquarters in Fairfield and will give an overview of what to expect when you volunteer, how volunteering might fit in with your lifestyle and where you can give the most help.
For more information, contact Bianka Saunders at volunteer@mifellowship.org or call her on (03) 8486 4205.
Session details:
Date: Thursday August 21, 2008
Time: 3.30 pm - 5pm
Address: Fairfield Place 276 Heidelberg Road Fairfield VIC 3078
MI Fellowship wins Bronze Australasian Reporting Award
MI Fellowship has been awarded a bronze in reporting from the Australasian Reporting Awards Inc. The Australasian Reporting Awards Inc is an independent body concerned about the quality of financial and business reporting. The award shows real excellence in how Mi Fellowship communicates its business and finances.
For more information about the awards and ARA itself please see here.
MiVoice online
The lastest edition of MI Fellowship's newsletter, MiVoice, has now been uploaded to our website. You can download a copy here.
PARC opens
Prevention and Recovery Care (PARC) was officially opened by Victorian Mental Health Minister Lisa Neville. The facility is run with the resources of the Alfred Hospital and the Mental Illness Fellowship of Victoria.
PARC is a more intensive level of care for people who are at a stage of their illness between requiring hospital and returning to home. PARC helps move patients more quickly out of hospital by offering a less intense treatment as they continue to recover and acts as a bridge between inpatient treatment and community care.
Woodcock lecture discusses mental illness and homelessness
The theme of this years lecture was housing for people with mental illness, which was addressed by guest speaker Dr Sam Tsemberis of Pathways to Housing in New York who presented the audience with his Housing First model.
Housing First is a new approach to housing for people with a mental illness that believe that housing is not something that people with a mental illness should be forced to work their way gradually towards but should be the first issue addressed when looking to help a person with a mental illness with their recovery.
To see a PowerPoint presentation of Dr Tsemberis' speech, click here.
As well as Dr Tsemberis' presentation, attendees of the Bruce Woodcock lecture were addressed by Victorian Housing Minister Richard Wynne, Dr Chris Chamberlain of RMIT University, Catherine Bleasdale and a carer for a person with a mental illness.
Mental Illness Fellowship Roundtable seeks debate around the 'Housing First' model.
Mental Illness Fellowship Victoria is interested in widening the debate to ensure that the wider group of people with severe and enduring mental illness is considered. Many of these people, for instance, are living in family homes with aging parents, only because no better appropriate housing options are available. This is a group at high risk of homelessness. We want to explore options that prevent homelessness in this group.
Mental Illness Fellowhip Victoria recently held a debate designed to engage key stakeholders in mental health, housing and homelessness in dialogue about the particular support needs of people with mental illness and to explore the principles of the successful ‘Housing First’ model established in the US and its transferability to the Australian context specifically for people with mental illness.
The debate was attended by key people involved in the housing sector including Julie Anderson Chair of Victorian Mental Health Ministerial Advisory Committee and Tony Keenan Chief Executive Officer, Hanover Family Services.
More on the Housing First model here
New Well Ways progam schedule opens
The Well Ways Program is designed to increase the capacity of families, carers and friends to care effectively for themselves, other family members and their relative living with mental illness. The program provides a broad and sensitive perspective to the many issues facing families as they manage the impact of mental illness on their lives.
Families, friends and carers of people with a mental illness should attend.
Here is a program outline
Here are a timetable of programs.
New Well Ways Duo Program Schedule opens
The Well Ways Duo Program aims to increase the capacity of families and friends of people with dual diagnosis to care effectively for themselves, the person with the dual diagnosis and other family members.
Family members, friends and carers of people with a mental illness/ dual diagnosis.
Here is a program outline and timetable of programs.
Margaret Springay discusses housing
Margaret Springgay Executive Director of Mental Illness Fellowship discusses the mental health housing crisis on Radio National.
More here
Grandparents care
On April 8, MI Fellowship will be launching a new kid of support program called Caring Grandparents aimed at helping address the needs of grandparents who are caring for their grandchildren due to the children's parent being unwell.
As well as expert speakers and great discussion groups, it's also a fantastic supportive environment for grandparents who feel they need would like to talk to other people in the same position about how they handle the demands that the caring role places on them in a relaxed and encouraging setting.
The initial program is being run in Carlton at the Drummond Street Relationship Centre at 195 Drummond St in Carlton and will first commence on Tuesday April 8 at 7pm, with further dates to be roled out throughout the year.
Anybody wishing to join the group can do so by giving a call to Georgie or Kristan on 9663 6733.
For further information, download the Caring Grandparents flyer.
Well Ways roll out continues
The Mental Illness Fellowship of Victoria's rollout of the successful Well Ways program is continuing throughout the first half of 2008 with new Well Ways groups opening up in Moonee Ponds, South Yarra, Altona, Ringwood, Sunshine and Epping.
For those new to the Fellowship, Well Ways is a peer support program specifically aimed at helping people who are carers of a person with a mental illness to know what to expect, how to cope and how to look after their own mental health while caring for someone else.
Well Ways is focused on providing practical advice using real life examples and most facilitators of the Well Ways program are themselves carers and have seen both the best and worst of time.
The Well Ways was originated in Victoria and has since bee nadopted by other organisations and rolled out across Australia.
The latest round of Well Ways programs has some significant innovations being introduced. The Ringwood program is being specifically tailored for people who are partners of people with a mental illness. A special Well Ways for people from different multicultural backgrounds is opening in Sunshine and one of the two programs opening in South Yarrais for carers of people with a dual diagnosis (i.e. living with both a mental illness and a substance abuse issue).
Media contact
For all media enquiries please contact Hootville Communications on 03 9510 4894, 0419 394 826 or gareth@hootville.com
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