Changes to Victoria's mental health laws mean people with lived experience of mental health challenges now support and advocate for those going through similar situations.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Victoria's mental health laws changed in September 2023 to include greater protections and advocacy in place for people on compulsory treatment orders.
If you have a mental illness and need treatment for your health and safety, or the safety of others, a doctor can order you receive treatment at a hospital or mental health clinic under a compulsory treatment order.
These orders can be challenged at the Mental Health Tribunal.
The new laws ensure people ordered to have compulsory mental health treatment will automatically have a lived-experience advocate assigned to them.
"It's really important for people to know that when people are in mental health challenge situation, if you feel that you are powerless or being ignored it makes it so much harder to have a good recovery," said lawyer Natalie Plumstead who specialises in the field.
"There is lots of lived experience expertise in the system to make sure when people are on an order, and maybe want to get that order changed or revoked, there's people who have actually been there with that lived experience who have designed the system to best suit the people in it.
"That takes the form of making sure there's someone in the room who has has actually been on an order who is there, and sets up better ways for people to express what their views and preferences are."
Advocates are also available to families and carers of people suffering mental health challenges to help them navigate through the system and their needs.
Ms Plumstead is starting a law firm dedicated to representing people appearing at the Mental Health Tribunal for compulsory treatment orders.
"Until recently there has been a very low rate of legal representation of people at the tribunal, just 10 to 15 per cent. It's important for people to have legal representation if they can get it," she said.
As part of Victorian Law Week, Ms Plumstead will chair a panel discussion with psychiatrist Richard Newton on Victoria's new mental health laws with a practical guide to understanding individual's rights, the provision of services and available support under the Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022 at Golden City Hotel in Ballarat on May 21 at 6pm.
The panel includes lawyers Leila Chalk and Bonina Challenor, Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council's Vrinda Edan and Nicole Lee, and the Mental Health Tribunal's Tracey Taylor.
