An essay I did for uni.
The first paper was published in the journal Advances in Mental Health in January 2015, and the lead writer is Rebecca Barton, a researcher in psychological issues at the University of Sydney (Barton et al. 2015). There are four other authors listed.
This paper addresses the problem of mental health in a rural and remote perspective, and in particular, the differences between people in urban and rural environments. The paper argues that men in remote and rural locations suffer higher rates of mental health issues than in urban areas whereas there are no discernible differences in women. In addition, the paper comments on the lack of data assessed for people living in remote or rural areas vis-à-vis those in urban areas and suggests that the rates of mental health and psychosocial issues are much higher than what is currently published.
The main point the authors make is that data is insufficient in the rural and remote areas of Australia for mental health issues. They suggest that there has been a preponderance of research conducted in urban settings and that the seriousness of mental health issues in rural and remote areas is underestimated. They further suggest that alcohol and drug abuse in these regions are higher than in urban areas due a combination of remoteness and lack of access to care.
The authors reported on a literature survey conducted by the Audit of Disability Research in Australia between 2000 and 2013. This survey was able to draw the conclusion that mental health issues in remote and regional areas are misrepresented and under-reported. This conclusion was derived by graphing the data received from all areas statistically and analysing the output. They further found that the target groups of the audit, namely women and Indigenous Australians lacked “any significant focus” (Barton et al. 2015 p.38) when it came to much of the data.
While this audit was being undertaken, the federal government introduced the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). The authors suggest that the NDIS will assist in providing new and improved services to regional and remote Australia, as it will replace a number of state-based and non-profit based organisations and schemes. One issue the authors found while investigating the audit was the differing nomenclature and terms used to describe various mental health issues and the people who suffer them. They further suggest that the unity provided by the NDIS will remove any barriers and impediments created by the use of differing and sometimes contradictory terms.
The second paper was published in the journal Police Practice and Research in August 2010 and the author is Katrina Clifford, a PhD candidate at the University of Canberra.
The first essential issue that this paper addresses is since the general closure of mental health institutions throughout Australia, there has been an increase in the arrest and incarceration of people with mental health issues (Clifford 2010). The paper then deals with the subject of police and the methods employed by them to handle subjects with mental health ailments. There is discussion that general duties police officers have little or no training with which to deal with people who have mental health problems.
The author cites research that 20% of the Australian public in 2007 have a mental disorder of some nature (Australian Bureau of Statistics, cited in Clifford 2010) and since the deinstitutionalisation of the mentally ill, the public health sector and the police have had additional burdens placed upon them. There is also discussion that the various police forces in Australia are not institutionally equipped to deal with people with mental health issues.
In the paper, the author has compiled research from different areas including other refereed journals, government publications and reports, and police reports. This research has been collated to give a comprehensive overview of the mental health issues modern Australians are facing and the police and governmental responses to the issues. The paper takes a somewhat bleak view in that there are a myriad of shortcomings and bureaucratic obstacles to achieving a universal approach to mental health, particularly as dealt with by the various police forces of Australia.
The author has presented Australian police forces as generally being reluctant to be at the front-line of mental health primary intervention. The paper also discusses a number of fatal incidents where police responded to violent people with mental health issues. In spite of the reluctance of police, the paper suggests that there is a widespread cross-jurisdiction training regime in place which endeavours to teach police the rudiments of mental health education, and how to approach affected people in crisis situations, and although there is a pessimistic view throughout the paper that enough has not been done yet, the author lauds positive and proactive steps taken by police authorities to date.
References
Barton, R, Robinson, T, Llewellyn, G, Thorncraft, K & Smidt, A 2015, ‘Rural and remote perspectives on disability and mental health research in Australia: 2000–2013’, Advances in Mental Health, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 30–42
Clifford, K 2010, ‘The thin blue line of mental health in Australia’, Police Practice and Research, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 355-370