Cautious welcome for mental health promise
Australia’s peak GLBTI health group has cautiously welcomed a Gillard Government funding promise to tackle GLBTI suicide rates.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has pledged $22.4 million — as part of a $277 million mental health package —– to target suicide in at-risk groups, including gay, lesbian and bisexual people, men and Indigenous Australians, if re-elected.
National LGBT Health Alliance executive director Gabi Rosenstreich told Sydney Star Observer she was pleased the Government was starting to take notice of the community’s mental health needs.
“I think it’s fantastic the Government has listened to us in this instance and made a commitment to work with the LGBT community sector to make a real improvement in the mental health of LGBT people,” she said.
Prime Ministerial spokeswoman Nardia Dazkiw would not go into detail as to how the $22.4 million will be sliced up between the three at-risk groups identified, however, she said the Government would consult with the GLBTI community on how the money would be spent.
“Funding will be provided to communities with the highest needs and to projects which can make the highest impact across each of these groups,” she told Sydney Star Observer.
“Services that funding may be directed to include training frontline workers to identify and respond to suicide, and community health promotion and prevention activities to build resilience and positive mental health.”
Rosenstreich has, however, warned that rolling out a national program would be difficult as the GLBTI health sector is critically under-resourced and the LGBT Health Alliance itself — the country’s peak body — is not provided ongoing Government funding.
“We are still awaiting a commitment that an incoming government will support the structures to engage with the LGBT community sector,” Rosenstreich said.
“Without such structure in place, these sorts of initiatives are not going to be as effective as they need to be.
The Greens have announced they will seek $300,000 government funding a year, for four years, for a “properly-resourced” national peak body for the GLBTI community after the election.
Although the Government’s failure to include the transgender community in the announcement was picked up by some, Dazkiw said the suicide prevention grants would not preclude support for transgender suicide prevention.
“Funding will be targeted to communities of highest need.”
Ok so you say “Gillard Government funding promise to tackle GLBTI suicide rates.”
But then you report “to target suicide in at-risk groups, including gay, lesbian and bisexual people, men and Indigenous Australians,”
So which is it?
Is the part of GLBTI with the highest recorded suicide problem in this or is it not? Is Transgender in this or not? And is Intersex in this or is it not?
Which is it? Have those most in need been left out?
It is all very well to give money to fund services for our community but not a lot of thinking went into this.
Should Beyond Help, who’s Chairman of the Board and Ambassador likens employing someone who is gay to employing a paedophile get millions? This is the same group that produced guidelines that ignored the clinical evidence on depression in our community. Beyond Help is setup like The Australia Institute and is a political Think Tank on depression. It has a conflict with corporate sponsors and government sponsors. Beyond Help can ignore clinical evidence as they are not an organization based on clinical evidence that you would typically find at a hospital.
Even the academic Beyond Help employed to do research could not believe they did not include the clinical findings on our community, when they produced guidelines for GP’s.
We are a high risk group, surely we deserve funding not to go to Beyond Help. What does this say about how much the Gillard values our community?
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/kennett-gay-storm/story-e6frf7l6-1111117025363
http://www.theage.com.au/national/gays-ignored-by-beyondblue-20090627-d0lf.html
Yes, I am sure the development of the Caritas facility site at Darlinghurst into luxury apartments is an initiative which will fund the part of the package designated for glbti suicide prevention. Oh silly me, the developers’ money would have gone to their mates in the NSW government.