Ironbark – PARC Group program for strengthening emotional resilience (In Progress)

In partnership with Spectrum and Austin Health, Mind Australia is conducting research to explore the effectiveness of the Ironbark program. The Ironbark program is a targeted short-term structured program in PARCs (Prevention and Recovery Care) for strengthening people’s emotional resilience. 

Data collection for the pilot study has recently concluded and data analysis is currently underway. 

Relational Mapping at Peninsula Health at the APARC and YPARC 

This innovative program offered reflective practice for Prevention and Recovery Care (PARCs) team members to support the team to pay attention to others and themselves, to notice relational patterns as they occur in the workplace and to use this awareness to enhance understanding of specific practice challenges. Relational mapping comes from Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) and has been successfully used to encourage relational styles of interaction with clients and between team members. Relational mapping has been used to support a collaborative reformulation (or contextual reformulation) to capture the dynamics that are being experienced within the team, as they relate to specific clients. 

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of relational mapping to enhance team skills, through its role in facilitating reflective practice, developing team formulations and supporting a collaborative team culture at the PARCS.

Emotion Regulation and Impulse Control (ERIC) Evaluation in Youth Services (2023)

Emotional Regulation and Impulse Control (ERIC) is an evidence-based approach licensed by Deakin University. It is a series of brief interventions targeted specifically at a youth demographic. Emotional regulation can be considered a core challenge for people experiencing mental health challenges across many diagnoses. In response to this challenge, Mind Australia implemented a trial of ERIC in their youth mental health programs – YORS [outreach support], YRRs [residential rehabilitation] and YPARCs [Prevention and Recovery Centres] - in March 2022. The ERIC evaluation took a hybrid approach and explored implementation activities and related effectiveness. Service users and staff generously contributed their ideas and experiences to support effective delivery of the ERIC program going forward. 

Residents saw ERIC as providing valuable life skills. They emphasised that time, encouragement, and discussion were necessary to enacting the tools and synthesising learnings in a meaningful way, especially when they were experiencing difficulties with concentration, or had a diagnosed learning difficulty such as dyslexia. Residents emphasised how much processes of self-reflection and change demanded of them, often touching on triggers and feelings of shame. Encouragement and sufficient time for processing were necessary to the internalisation process.

Borderline Personality as Social Phenomena Research Project at RMIT (2023)

This project focused on Borderline Personality Disorder as a diagnosis, a label, a site of considerable controversy, and a lens through which to examine sociocultural questions around shifting attitudes to labelling diverse personality traits as ‘disorders’. The project collected a range of distinct personal narratives from people with lived experience of BPD, and from health and social care practitioners supporting this group of people. Mind Australia was a partner in the project along with National Mental Health Commission, the Department of Health (Victoria), Mental Health Victoria, Neami National, Spectrum Eastern Health, SANE Australia, Orygen, and Lived Experience Australia.

We encourage you to access this innovative and interactive online resource to hear BPD lived experience stories and narratives told through visual and audio formats.