Helen Mayo House Services

Helen Mayo House Services is a statewide service and has been part of the Women's and Children's Hospital since 1997. The purpose of the service is to provide treatment for women with ante natal and post natal mental health problems.

Services are Provided by Different Branches of the Service:

• Helen Mayo House is located on the Glenside Campus and is six bed inpatient unit where women with a serious post natal mental illness are admitted with their babies and children up to the age of five
  
• Helen Mayo House Outreach provides a community group program for women who have found motherhood difficult and overwhelming and have become anxious and depressed.
  
• Helen Mayo House Services provides a consultant liaison service to the Mother's and Babies Division of the Women's and Children's Hospital.
  

• Helen Mayo House Services has a focus on education and provides education on ante natal, post natal and infant mental health issues to a wide range of community organisations, health professionals and consumers.
  
• Helen Mayo House organises an annual conference with

local, interstate and overseas presenters giving up to date information on a range of issues related to the mental health of women and infants.

• Helen Mayo House Services has helped establish a satellite group from the Institute of Psychiatry in Sydney to run a post graduate diploma or Masters Degree in Infant Mental Health
  
• Knowledge about infant mental health and mother infant attachment is important in guiding interventions offered by Helen Mayo House Services.
  

• In partnership with Good Beginnings and the Playgroup Association a playgroup will be established in Helen Mayo House and links made to community playgroups using volunteers.
  
• Helen Mayo House Services Outreach Program and the Lady Gowrie Childcare Centre are to pilot an eight week group for mothers and infants, to nurture this relationship
  

Southern CAMHS Country Team Expansion

The Southern CAMHS Country Team expanded with the appointment of 4 new therapists! Following the allocation of new money for child and youth mental health to the rural health regions during 2001, each of the Southern Country regions have subcontracted the CAMHS Country Team to provide new initiatives in their regions. This brings the number of clinicians working throughout the southern country areas of the state to 18.

In Riverland where CAMHS already provides general therapeutic services, plus a school support program and a youth suicide prevention program, the money will be put into an early intervention program with preschoolers. The focus of this program will be to work through kindergartens and child care centres to identify young children already exhibiting signs of behavioural and emotional difficulties which, if unchecked could lead on to the formation of a conduct disorder. Research clearly establishes that the most effective time to intervene around such issues is in the preschool years.  Parents, teachers and caregivers will be offered therapeutic and education services to enable these difficulties to be targeted early.

In the South East current services are strained through demand and the distances which need to be covered to provide an accessible service. The appointed therapist will increase the capacity of the team and enable each member to offer more preventive and health promoting initiatives within the region. The new therapist will also work with education, other

youth service agencies and regional mental health to further develop youth mental health promotion in the SE.

The Hills Mallee Southern Regional Health Service has chosen to put their money into providing a locally based CAMHS service in the Southern Fleurieu. These 2 new workers will be based at Community Health in Victor Harbor, and will also support the Mt Barker CAMHS service. This was the last area in the southern part of SA, apart from Kangaroo Island, to still be lacking local CAMHS workers, and Southern CAMHS as well as the Southern Fleurieu Health Service is tremendously thrilled to be finally addressing this gap, after years of lobbying.

The Southern Country Team welcomes these new workers and the increased capacity they bring in addressing the needs of the communities we serve. We also thank the Regional Health Services for the vote of confidence they have provided in the model of service delivery we have adopted. We are proud of the high quality, accessible and collaborative CAMHS service that we have developed in rural SA and thrilled that the mental health needs of young people, children, and families in these areas is being acknowledged in this way.

Robyn Duckworth
Regional Director,
Southern CAMHS Country Services, Ph 0417 861 032