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September/October2022ALIVEImage description: The ALIVE National Team and Mad Poetry attendees at the park COMMUNITY UPDATEThe ALIVE National Centre for Mental Health Research Translation is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Special Initiative in Mental Health grant APP2002047.

We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and sky. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present. We are committed to working together to address the health inequalities within our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We accept the invitation to the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

3Welcome[Featured on the front cover from left to right: Tim, Isabella, Jen, Laura, Michelle, Vicki, Alise, Phil, Ali, Allan, Jill, Josh, Bec]Welcome to this September-October bi-monthly Community Update. This is our first welcome as Co-Directors and it is exciting to have taken the Centre's embedded lived-experience research model to this next level. We will share more about our approach as we go along.In September, Phillip Orcher and Matthew Lewis in our priority populations program attended the update on Victorian reforms related to the Royal Commission.There was plenty to listen to and we enjoyed catching up with Sheree Lowe from Balit Durn Durn (who features in our video series on Diversity and Inclusion in co-design) specifically chatting with Phillip on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander co-design as part of a University of Melbourne funded project.If you have been out and about or engaging in implementation activities don't forget to let the HUB team know to add them into the Community Update.Another September success was the annual Next Generation Researcher Network event A guide to the mental health research funding galaxy. You can read more about this and the four successful Seed Funding projects in the later pages. We've invested $80,000 in these projects to support the growth for the early career research pathways.The Centre has had a busy World Mental Health month too. In collaboration with Big Anxiety Festival, we have held a Mad Poetry Rooms at The ALIVE National Centre – if you read on you might see some of the amazing poems!

4You can catch up on planned activities for the next six months by looking at the activities snapshot. For a deeper look at our current implementation research activities and connection to the networks see pages 10-11. You can see that we have a good deal of research underway to match to our national roadmap translational goals.We will not stop for long as we head to our 2023 Annual Symposium. This year we're focused on Holistic Terrains –how do we get there in mental health research translation?We've got some great extra exciting things to share for this in our program being released early November – so keep posted!Come and spend some time with us soon at one of our events, training programs or get Ready, Set, Translate at our Virtual Café Series soon!Victoria Palmer &Michelle BanfieldCo-DirectorsThe BIG news for World Mental Health Day was the launch of the Lived-Experience Research Collective's flagship The Long Conversation – TLC. This project kick starts the Crowdsourcing Space on our digital platform too and if you haven't seen this yet check it out here:https://alivenetwork.com.au/challenge/the-long-conversation-crowd-call/We are looking forward to working across the nation with The Long Conversation – it is a conversation that we need to have about the who, what, where, and how of lived-experience research.Thanks to our governance Co-Chairs and members, and co-leads across the networks and research programs of the National Centre. Your dedication and hard work contribute to changing mental health care through research translation in Australia.

5The Snapshot of The ALIVE Nati

6onal Centre Activities

Highlight on LonelinessBy the Prevention across the Life course Research ProgramThis month the prevention across the Life course had a presentation from ALIVE National Chief Investigator Michelle Lim on Loneliness: current issues and direction.Dr Michelle Lim is a senior researcher at Swinburne University and the chair and scientific chair at Ending Loneliness Together (https://endingloneliness.com.au)Michelle founded Ending Loneliness Together in 2016 and co-founded the Global Initiative on Loneliness and Connection in 2021 (https://www.gilc.global). Some of the points raised in the presentation are highlighted below:Loneliness affects all of us. It is not limited to older populations. 1 in 4 Australians experience loneliness. Those who experience loneliness have higher likelihood of other chronic diseases like poorer heart health, increased risk of stroke and depression, anxiety and dementia.Loneliness shortens lives, impacts on physical health and overall wellbeing, and is economically costly. The prevalence of loneliness is double that of social isolation.We might not be able to stop people being lonely but we can intervene before it becomes a chronic experience which we know affects our health.Chronic loneliness is preventable and needs to be addressed. We can do more than reducing social isolation and our approach has to be underpinned by the evidence based in order to be cost effective. Of critical importance, we must integrate lived-experience into the work we do, in order to ensure consumer-relevance solutions and policies.7"Loneliness is a subjective unpleasant or distressing feeling of a lack of connection to other people along with a desire for more or more satisfying social relationships"-Badcock, Holt-Lunstand, Bombaci, Garcia & Lim (2022)

8Holistic TerrainsHow Do We Get There in Mental Health Research Translation?"A TERRAIN" a geographic area, a piece of land. Or, the physical features of a type of land and what that land is made from...Our 2023 Symposium Theme"Holistic Care is about creating socio-cultural and economic environments which sustains people's holistic well-being, for example, in workplaces, housing, education, welfare systems, addressing both physical and mental health."(Consumer-Carer Respondent The ALIVE National Centre and ANU Priorities Survey March 2022).

9Current Implementation Researc

10h & Networks

Welcome to new co-leadsIn October we welcome five new Lived-Experience Research Collective Group Leads.Launch of the Long Conversationhttps://alivenetwork.com.au/challenge/the-long-conversation-crowd-call/We’re looking for a crowd to share models, practices or frameworks of lived experience mental health research in Australia!Help us to start The Long Conversation – a nation-wide project of the Lived-Experience Research Collective.This project is documenting the who, what, where and how of lived-experience research across the nation.Watch the how to video here for submitting an idea to the Crowdsourcing Space:https://youtu.be/kwcfOGqS2-411Lived-Experience Research Collective

12The ALIVE National Centre & Neami National are embarking on the Implementation Co-Evaluation of the Head to Health Services being delivered by Neami National.Neami National is a partner in The ALIVE National Centre for Mental Health Research Translation. The two organisations are collaborating on an implementation co-evaluation of the four Head to Health Services, located in Darwin, Townsville, Penrith and Geelong, and the Urgent Mental Health Care Centre in Adelaide that are run by Neami National.The co-evaluation seeks to understand how each service is progressing on its implementation journey within its context and the things that have been helping or could be improved in this process. The evaluation design has undergone co-design sessions with Co-Design Living Labs members for project design of methods and questions.A small series of meetings have also been held wiith Head to Health peer and wellbeing workers, clinical workers, and decision makers to understand what would be important for them too.Ethics has been submitted for Phase 1 for the co-evaluation which is focused on the design, development, and engagement steps. This will provide information on where the implementation of the services currently stands and will inform Phase 2 of the co-evaluation which will involve more focused data collection in early 2023.A key component of Phase 1 is the engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and community-based collaborators of the services to ensure that the co-evaluation captures information that is important to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, engages effectively with First Nations guests and communities at each service, and ensures cultural safety for participants.A Lived-Experience Research Collective team has also formed. Work is progressing in developing a statement of intent about the work roles, and to develop a training and mentoring approach to work collaboratively throughout the project. The lived-experience research team will be embedded across Phase 1 and Phase 2 activities for further study design, data collection and data analysis activities.Update on the Neami Implementation Co-Evaluation

Network UpdatesNext GenerationResearcher NetworkA guide to the mental health research funding galaxyOn 7 September 2022, the ALIVE National Centre and the Next Generation Network launched the inaugural Researcher Capacity Building Event A Guide to the Mental Health Funding Galaxy. The event had a stellar panel of founding ALIVE National investigators and guests: Jane Pirkis, Lena Sanci, Dianne Shanley, Michelle Banfield and Luke Burchill.The panel was organised by the Next Generation Research Network co-leads and the event set out to answer the questions you wanted answered. These questions started with the following:What types of grants are out there? What are your top tips for applying for funding? What are assessors looking for?Following on from this panel session and the intergalactic discussions we had, the ALIVE National Centre has launched Researcher Guide to the Funding Galaxy to capture these golden lessons and learnings.This is a co-created guide that will be added to follow each annual event bringing together the pearls of wisdom from panelists, question askers, and attendees. This guide is available to the Next Generation Researcher Network and Lived-Experience Research Collective members only."Thank you for compiling this booklet. It is handy to have the information presented in a simple format and is much more useful than my scribbled notes!." (NGRN Member Feedback).13

If you missed the panel session, watch the recording below or click this link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij2OXbVEJwM&t=1102s2022 ALIVE National Seed FundingWe'd like to thank everyone who applied for the 2022 NGRN ALIVE National Seed Funding scheme. We had a large number of quality applications but were only able to award four. We'd like to congratulate the four applicants that were successful. Please see their project details in the pages that follow.14

Network Updates15

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Network Updates17Co-Design Living Labs NetworkWe digitally launched our Co-designers Handbook in September named “A Handbook by and for working with Co-Designers”. Our Co-Design Living Labs co-leads and the team have co-created this handbook from our learning with our members. Within the handbook co-designers have shared tips for self-care, preparation for co-design sessions and online etiquette. We are marking this exciting occasion by celebrating the efforts of all who have contributed to our Co-designers handbook in an online celebration event for the Network in November.We have also recently launched The Alex McLeod Co-Designer Training Award. This award willprovide support for two Co-Design Living Labs members to be appointed to a training position for a year. The aim is to foster co-design skills development, and grow the capabilities within themembership base of the Co-Design Living Labs Network.ANNOUNCING THE ALEX MCLEOD CO-DESIGNER TRAINING AWARDThis Award is named in honour of our long-standing co-design member, Bev Harding, whose son sadly left the world in 2021 not long after the Centre was announced. It provides an opportunity for a co-design member to grow leadership skills, practices, and methods in co-design for future convening, research and facilitation.Bev shares, “Alex was someone who had a vibrant personality and loved life, however his mental ill-health prevented him from living life to its fullest. Tragically twenty years of struggling with mental torment, led to his premature death in 2021 at the age of thirty four.”Bev Harding brings her own experience of mental health needs and providing support as a family member over the course of Alex’s life and navigating this major gap in her life. We are honoured to work with Bev and thank her for her generosity of time and spirit.Image by gstudioimagenon Freepik

18As one of the first members in the Co-Design Living Labs program, 2023 will mark a 20-year relationship with the University of Melbourne Primary Care Mental Health program team led by Professor Victoria Palmer. This mental health research program was established by ALIVE National Investigator Professor Jane Gunn.Bev first joined a 10-year project exploring experiences of depression and service use in 2003 (the diamond study) led by Professor Gunn and then, joined the Co-Design Living Labs on its establishment in 2017.This annual Award marks an important moment in the next steps of the Co-Design Living Labs program as it scales to become a national network and strives to support the member base to become leaders within the network. Applications are currently open and we hope to share further updates on this later in the year.

Ready, Set, Translate – Virtual CIn September's Ready, Set, Translate - Virtual Café Series, we were fortunate to have Professor Darryl Maybery, Director of Research and Professor of Rural Mental Health in the School of Rural Health at Monash University, presented on supporting children of parents with mental ill-health that provides an important opportunity for prevention.In his talk, Darryl presented global data highlighting the prevalence of children who have a parent with mental ill-health and the impact this can have on children (e.g. difficulties with school readiness). Darryl explored evidence-based approaches for supporting these children and young people, such as family-focused approaches,peer support, and targeted online interventions. Consistent with the focus of The ALIVE National Centre to transform mental health through co-designing primary care and community actions, Darryl also presented his recent work –seven fundamental things that services can do when engaging with children, carers and families – which captures services user perspectives and is designed to support service providers.This important work has informed international recommendations for working with children and parents living with parental mental ill-health.Written by Monika Raniti, The ALIVE National Centre's Prevention Across the Life Course Program Research Fellow. Watch recording here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxlHpbKGuMQ&list=PLaWcF-KKiprcS5D-sQ8nhupTyZVIR1BV0&index=619

afé SeriesIn October's Ready, Set, Translate - Virtual Café Series, we will hear from Jenni Campbell presenting on The National Assessment and Referral (IAR) for Mental Healthcare Guidance and Decision Support Tool. The conversation will be hosted by the Implementation and Translation Network.In November we have Bernard Galbally and Rebecca Morecroft presenting on Live4Life: Bringing together rural and regional communities to improve youth mental health and wellbeing.See more about the Ready, Set, Translate – Virtual Café Series, watch previous recordings and register for these talks here: https://alivenetwork.com.au/ready-set-translate-the-alive-mental-health-research-translation-virtual-cafe-series/20

EventsThe Big Anxiety FestivalWritten by Rebecca Moran, The ALIVE National Centre's Lived-Experience Engagement Research Fellow based with Jill Bennett @UNSWThe Big Anxiety Naarm was an experience filled with big feelings, connection, unity, empathy, and respect. Participants were wonderful at following the suggested modes of interaction with the workshops, presentations, and exhibits: they cared for themselves and each other, and they took breaks in The Quiet Room or The Not-So-Quiet rooms as needed.The design of these two rooms was based on a survey conducted prior to the festival forum, seeking to understand what facilitates a safe and engaging mental health/arts experience. Survey participants told us they wanted a space that was quiet, with low light, comfortable furniture, a feeling of welcome, permission to step out, and no judgement.They also told us they wanted somewhere to step out for small breaks with a friend or a cuppa, so we created the Not-So-Quiet Room for this purpose. Interestingly, participants transformed the Not-So-Quiet Room into an extension of the Quiet Room, with low light and only low conversation.Experiences such as Marianne Wobke's 'Road Trip' and Indigo Daya's 'Slice/Silence' were described by participants as powerful and moving. A number of participants described their experiences of the forum and their conversations with artists and presenters as life-changing, and truly transformational. For those who attended the entire two days, participants told us they felt full, as well as inspired, supported, and transformed.Thanks to our brilliant production team, even the pack down went smoothly! We at the Big Anxiety Festival and Centre are grateful and honoured to have shared this experience with so many bright, inquiring, determined, and passionate people - many of them peer workers or lived experience experts. We look forward to the next festival, wherever that might be. Thank you to all who attended.21

Action on poor physical health in psychosis- symposium and workshop held 15th September 2022 by the Psychosis Australia Trust.Recently, some of the ALIVE National Centre representatives attended a symposium in Sydney on improving the physical health of people who live with psychosis. The symposium was convened by the Psychosis Australia Trust, which is auspicedby the Mental Illness Fellowship of Australia.The aim of the symposium was to develop a position statement of actions to better address the poor physical health that people with enduring mental health challenges commonly experience.Across the day the 100 attendees from research, health services, primary care, lived experience advocacy groups, and government reflected on actions that could be taken. A presentation was shared by lived-experience researcher Debbie Hamilton who provided a generous overview of their story and a powerful insight into the complexities of gaining action on physical health needs.Keynote presentations on translational models that have been implemented to address the physical health of people with mental health issues were presented. Attendees elected one of 10 discussion tables to contribute thoughts and ideas for synthesis into a position statement, which were then presented back to the audience.Themes of lived-experience leadership, prevention focused approaches, community engagement, workforce composition, and improving service access and ease of navigation emerged. These themes are aligned with some priorities identified in the ALIVE National Centre pocket map.While these themes are also consistent with themes found in other policy documents and consensus statements, we anticipate that this position statement will form another tool for lobbying and advocacy work, and for ensuring that improving the health and wellbeing of people with mental health issues stays on the national agenda with clear actions invested in.22Written by Justin Chapman, The ALIVE National Centre's Mental Health Care at Scale Program Research Fellow.

EventsI did this because when reading the words together, they resonated with my personal suicide narrative, and the tiring sense of continuous re-birth, re-authoring, and re-claiming that I’ve felt at times throughout recovery and reform.Throughout the workshop we also had opportunities to explore non-judgmental and non-restrictive writing to see what might emerge. This created space in the room for some understandably difficult emotions to surface and stories to be shared with the group. It was quite incredible, but unsurprising in a room of mad poets, to notice how we entered spaces of peer connection to navigate this together.We also explored ways to use pre-designed templates, shared a lot of joy, let out a good deal of laughter, and later that evening we held a Live Poetry Readings in the park where we were joined by the ALIVE National Centre friends and colleagues who listened as pieces of poetry were performed.23On World Mental Health Day, Tim Heffernan and Alise Blayney co-facilitated Mad Poetry workshops at The ALIVE National Centre.The workshops began with a recognition toward the legacy of Alise’s late husband, Benjamin Frater, a truly great surrealist poet. Tim Heffernan wrote, "Ben wanted to run poetry workshops while people were waiting hours for blood test results so they could receive their appropriate dose of Clozapine, an antipsychotic that eventually defeated him and resulted in his early death at 28".Together, we watched a video of Ben performing The Argument,which begins with the following two lines.We then reflected as a group on the poem before Alise and Tim guided us through an activity of individually selecting cut-outs of poetry lines from envelopeslabelled with names of various poets. I chose two cut-outs by Virginia Woolf and put them together in the following way:Written by Josh Moorhouse, The ALIVE National Centre's Lived-Experience Co-Design Researcher based in South Australia.“I’m sick to death of this particular self.”“I want another.”“Arrange whatever pieces come your way.”“the dreamer who butchered his arm to challenge his reality, now butchers his reality to challenge his arm.”

Poem by Mark at the Live Poetry ReadingsI am dog woodI wonder why I wrote that?I hear tinnitus in deep silenceI see a migraine auraI want NurofenI am dog woodI pretend I’m OKI feel nervous anticipationI touch my stomachI worry what it will look like after Wednesday?I cry when I think about what I might loseI am dog woodI understand nothingI say the opposite all the timeI dream I’m sitting on the cowshed roofI try to remember the feelingAs (I hope) the visitors will come soonI am Dog Wood.24

EventsRe-imagining Mental Health Services for American Indian Communities: Centering Indigenous PerspectivesPresented by Professor Joseph P. Gone, Ph.D. Harvard UniversityProfessor Jane Gunn, Dean, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at The University of Melbourne is pleased to host this special lecture by visiting academic Professor Joseph Gone.The Indigenous peoples of North America are heirs to the shattering legacy of European colonization. These brutal histories of land dispossession, military conquest, forced settlement, religious repression, and coercive assimilation have robbed American Indian communities of their economies, lifeways, and sources of meaning and significance in the world.The predictable consequence has been an epidemic of “mental health” problems such as demoralization, substance abuse, violence, and suicide within these communities. One apparent solution would seem to be the initiation or expansion of mental health services to better reach American Indian clients. And yet, conventional mental health services such as counseling and psychotherapy depend on assumptions and aspirations that may not fit well with Indigenous cultural sensibilities.This presentation will review the implicit logics that structure mental health service delivery as well as key commitments of many American Indian cultural psychologies in an effort to re-imagine counseling services in a manner that truly centers Indigenous perspectives.25

About the speakerJoseph P. Gone is an international expert in the psychology and mental health of American Indians and other Indigenous peoples. A professor at Harvard University, Dr. Gone has collaborated with tribal communities for over 25 years to critique conventional mental health services and harness traditional culture and spirituality for advancing Indigenous well-being. He has received recognition in his fields through several fellowships and career awards, including a year-long residency at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.A graduate of Harvard College and the University of Illinois, Dr. Gone is currently a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and of seven divisions of the American Psychological Association (APA). An enrolled member of the Aaniiih-Gros Ventre Tribal Nation of Montana, he also served briefly as the Chief Administrative Officer for the Fort Belknap Indian reservation.In 2014, Gone was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2021 he received the APA Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Applied Research and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.Register:https://2022-joseph-gone.eventbrite.com.au/26Event DetailsDate:Monday 7 NovemberTime:12:30pm – 1:30pmVenue:Woodward Conference CentreLevel 10, Melbourne LawBuilding, 185 Pelham StCarltonOr join via livestream by registering belowEnquiries:Mdhs-rsvp@unimelb.edu.auBookings:Register via:go.unimelb.edu.au/jg2e

Writer-In-ResidenceOn 8 October 2022, Rachel Tindall completed the Writer-In-Residence program with the ALIVE National Centre.During this 16-week program, Rachel published 8 written and visual content to support research translation activities of the ALIVE National Centre reaching community, government and professional audiences.Read Rachel's writings on our noticeboard here www.alivenetwork.com.au27

In October we have appointed the new Writer-In-Residence, Brett Scholz!Brett Scholz is a Senior Research Fellow / Senior Lecturer based in the School of Medicine and Psychology at The Australian National University. As a Critical Health Psychologist, Brett’s research often focuses on ways in which health and health services can be more equitable, led by consumers, and challenging social norms and power structures. The majority of his 86 publications to date have been co-produced with and/or co-authored by consumer researchers, and his research program is concerned broadly with lived experience leadership in health policy, health services, health research, and health education. According to SciVal, since 2017 he has been the leading scholar (in terms of number of research outputs) in consumer leadership.Brett has served as a Board Member for the ACT Mental Health Consumer Network, and was co-founder and Chief Research Office for Spur Projects. He is an inaugural editorial board member for the International Mad Studies Journal, and serves on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, Psychology of Men & Masculinities, and is an associate editor for BMC Health Services Research. He is current Secretary for the International Society of Critical Health Psychology. When he’s not thinking about all things lived experience leadership, he can be found on the hunt for the best bánh cuốn, sipping a matcha latte, or singing karaoke.28

People across The ALIVE NationIn this edition we get to know our new team member - Justin Chapman who has joined us as a Mental Health Care at Scale Program Research Fellow, working closely with one of our Mental Health Care at Scale Program Leads – Amanda Wheeler from Griffith University.Most of my research has been in implementation and evaluation of lifestyle programs for people with mental health issues in partnership with PCYC Queensland.However, more broadly my focus is on improving how health services and community organisations address the health and wellbeing of people with mental health issues.I've recently started as a Research Fellow at Griffith University's Centre for Mental Health with ALIVE's Mental Health Care at Scale program.I also work as a research officer with QLD Health Metro South Addictions and Mental Health Service and QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. Currently in a mid-life crisis I'm learning to ride a skateboard and have taken up boxing, both of which keep me on my toes almost as much as my two young children.29

al CentreI am a Research Fellow across both the ACT Consumer and Carer Mental Health Research unit (ACACIA) and ALIVE. I have worked in mental health research for over a decade, and received my PhD from the University of Manchester in 2021 which explored suicide and violence prevention in male prisoners. I have a particular interest in mental health research topics such as suicide prevention, children and youth mental health and forensic mental health.The common thread through all of my research to date is my passion for placing lived experience at the heart of the research cycle, so I am super excited to be working for an organisation which places such a strong emphasis on this.I am originally from the UK, so when I’m not working you can find me exploring this beautiful country, usually with my dog - a chihuahua x pug or ‘chug’ named Luna – in tow.In this edition we get to know our new team member - Laura Hemming who has joined us as a Lived-Experience Research Fellow, working closely with one of our Co-Directors and Lived-Experience Leads – Michelle Banfield from Australian National University.30