Services

How we can help you

The Deafness and Mental Health Service helps you to get the care you need for your mental health.

Finding out what you need

We can talk to you and the people who support you and help you to find other mental health services if you need them. You can see a doctor, nurse or social worker on the team to talk about your mental health. We will always provide you with an Auslan interpreter if you need one.

Helping you find mental health services

We talk to other mental health services to help them understand how to work with people who are deaf or hard of hearing. We also run education and training programs for mental health professionals to give them more information about how to provide the best care for Deaf people and to understand and respect Deaf culture.

Giving you information

We have factsheets to help you learn about different mental health problems. You can watch the Auslan video translations and download and print the factsheets. We can give information to other services, so they know what is special about working with deaf and hard of hearing people.

Contacting us

You can email, text 0427 598 076 or call us on (07) 3317 1080 to ask questions and find out what you need and where to get help.

It is estimated that around 1 in 6 people experience some degree of hearing loss. The number of signing deaf people varies depending on the research consulted, with one article stating 6,500 and another 15,400. Other research suggests that up to 70% of adult Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have hearing problems and deafness, often related to poorly managed childhood infections.

This is the Deafness and Mental Health Statewide Consultation and Liaison Service, or for short the Deafness and Mental Health Service. It is the only government service of its kind in Australia and is based in Queensland.

Prior to this service being established, Deaf and hard of hearing people were unable to access any services specifically designed to meet their needs. The Deafness and Mental Health Service aims to encourage other mental health services to become more inclusive, accessible and culturally affirmative for Deaf and hard of hearing people in Queensland. This is by providing educational resources, consultation and assessments and providing other education, training and counselling.

Mission

Our mission is to connect Deaf and hard of hearing people with culturally affirmative, accessible and inclusive mental health care throughout Queensland.

This is achieved through:

• providing education and training
• supporting mental health clinical staff and other service providers
• support for Deaf and hard of hearing mental health consumers
• the development of prevention strategies
• providing consultation services

Resources

An example of the resources we create includes the Guidelines for working with people who are Deaf or hard of hearing. We also have educational resources on topics such as schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, alcohol, sexual health, medication and relationships. To access these resources, you can email us.

The team also provides workshops, training and presentations for service providers working with Deaf or Deaf indigenous people to improve their work practices.

Consultation

The Deafness and Mental Health Service provides consultation with external mental health services or private clinicians who work with Deaf consumers who have a mental health issue. This consultation can be arranged as one-on-one or group support, either face-to-face or remotely via video conferencing. During this support our team can provide considerations on the deaf consumer’s language and communication, assess their mental health and needs. Our team can then advise the treating team further on the best approach to improve outcomes for the deaf consumer. If the consumer is currently receiving treatment such as medication, counselling or psychology, for example, our team can provide advice on what is most appropriate or how to best improve treatment. Alternatively, we can help to find other methods of treatment that may be more appropriate and improve outcomes.

Education

Our service can provide educational sessions to health professionals. These sessions can be brief 1-2 hour or longer full-day workshops. The length of the session will depend on the attendees needs.

Educational content can be on a number of topics such as:

• Deaf culture and language
• Mental health assessments and consideration arising when working with deaf consumers
• Hearing loss and the impact on mental health
• The importance of booking an interpreter, how they work, what they are responsible for and how to best work with them

We also have established online training modules.

Therapy/Counselling

This service provides brief therapy and counselling programs. The service also works in collaboration with other mental health professionals to adapt their practice to be culturally appropriate for Deaf and hard of hearing consumers.

Feedback

If you have any recommendations or feedback please contact us.