Mental Health and Well-being Commission
How Polaron helped MHWC gather key mental health insights and disseminate information about their work
Overview
The Mental Health & Wellbeing Commission (MHWC) is an independent body that deals with complaints about Victorian public mental health services, including services delivered by public hospitals.
The Commission safeguards people’s rights, resolve complaints and recommends service and system improvements. Like all services that operate under the Act, they must uphold its mental health principles at all times.
The campaign
MHWC’s main objective was to disseminate key messages about its work and to let the communities know that ‘It’s OK to Complain’ (reference to a previous campaign). As this was the Commission’s first project involving translations, they wanted to ensure that they worked with a specialist language services provider. The communications team reached out to Polaron to collaborate on this translation project.
The work
Polaron provided specialist advice to the MHWC, which included recommendations like the inclusion and critical importance of community consultations, which would provide authentic feedback regarding the Commission’s existing fact sheets and videos.
The community consultations that we organised included participants from five different communities, which were: Arabic, Chinese, Punjabi, Spanish and Vietnamese.
Interestingly, the community consultations offered the project valuable insights about mental health, such as:
- stigma associated within community/society about mental health
- visa status affecting mental health services access (there was a perception that MHWC services were only available to Australian citizens)
- free or paid services
- lack of representation in the animated video series
Polaron’s insights, ideas, and expertise were invaluable to the success of our project. I sincerely appreciate your commitment and effort towards making this project a success.
Aanchal White
MHWC Senior Communications & Engagement Advisor