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Sacred Heart Mission applauds the Victorian Government on the undertaking of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System and welcomes the opportunity to provide a formal submission.
We urge the Victorian Government to prioritise holistic and trauma-informed care, and to improve access to the mental health system for people experiencing homelessness, mental illness and chronic disadvantage.
CEO Cathy Humphrey says the Royal Commission should recommend “a significant focus on ensuring access to safe, affordable long-term housing, using the Housing-First principles as this is essential to an effective mental health response to the Victorian community.”
Victoria needs a mental health system that provides individualised, intensive, trauma-informed response, in order to ensure that people facing complex challenges and who have chronic conditions have their needs met in the community, rather than in clinical or emergency settings. In particular, it must be more flexible and responsive, and easily accessible to people experiencing homelessness.
The Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health system is extremely important to the clients and staff of Sacred Heart Mission. We provided a series of recommendations to the Royal Commission, focusing on the links between housing, homelessness and mental health.
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