Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased tonight to speak about a locally based group in my electorate, Beautiful Minds, formed in 2004 with its name deriving from a 2001 movie starring Russell Crowe. The president, Sandra McDonald, became involved in this area when her son Shane developed a mental illness 10 years ago, at the age of 20. This initiated her drive to do something in our area.

The group is primarily about advocacy and fundraising for mental health in the Macarthur region. It is a community group built essentially around volunteers. It recognises the need for more to be done to help those in south-west Sydney with mental illness. It raises awareness and provides education to make mental illness an accepted illness. It is supported by the Schizophrenia Fellowship of New South Wales. In March 2008 they opened a mental health recovery centre in Campbelltown with the assistance of that organisation. That recovery centre is called Harmony House.

The group's stated vision is a society in which people with mental illness are valued and assisted in living fulfilling lives. On 10 March my wife, Maureen, and I attended a mad hatters event at the Ingleburn RSL Club, which was a major fundraiser for the group. The compere there was Captain Pat, from local radio station 96.1. I have to say that I had been to another function in the fortnight before that at which I had seen a decline from 300 attendees to about 150, and it was symptomatic of the reality that if you do not revive and refresh events they decline and people lose interest. So I have to say that this event on 10 March, which was strongly supported by the Ingleburn RSL Club and a number of other local groups, was a tremendous success both from the point of view of making money and for conviviality. A lot of work was done in regard to this event, helped by Hurlstone Agricultural College, one of New South Wales's major selective government schools, and the Campbelltown Performing Arts School. The children there provided strong support to the event.

The group is supported by a number of other organisations locally: Westpac of Ingleburn, the Storage King of Ingleburn, the RSL and so on. The group has really raised this issue to prominence in the local community. It conducts a recovery centre, Harmony House, which provides intensive support to people suffering from mental illness, and a recover program called Day to Day Living.

That program is aimed at developing day-to-day living skills and social skills and at increasing self-confidence, self-esteem and independence. Activities offered at the centre include arts, crafts, movies, outings, sports et cetera. It is one of many services provided by the Schizophrenia Fellowship of New South Wales and funded partially by the Department of Health and Ageing, DoHA.

Beautiful Minds runs street stalls, raffles, and an annual fundraiser, the Beautiful Minds High Tea, which I cited earlier. In 2012 it raised $70,000 for a revamp of the recovery gardens at the Waratah Adult Mental Health Unit, behind the Campbelltown Hospital. In 2011 and 2012, it was the major mayoral charity and gained the proceeds from the annual Menangle trotting night, which is a major social event—and, as I say, rather than having balls et cetera, out in Campbelltown they conduct this charity race-meet.

It is worth noting that one in five Australian adults will experience a mental illness at some stage in their lives. Young adults between 18 and 24 years of age have the highest prevalence of mental illness. Statistics from the ABS for 2007 note these facts. Recent decades have seen less use of residential mental institutions and increased use of community mental health services—and this is the flavour of this organisation's activities. People with a mental illness may use a variety of services to help improve their ability to work or care for themselves. Two-thirds of people with a mental disorder had not used services for their mental health problems for the 12 months before that survey. People aged 16 to 34 were less likely to have used services for their mental health problems.

I want to summarise by saying that Sandra McDonald, the committee and the volunteers are the people who get off their backsides to make sure that this event occurs every year and that there are volunteers out there in the local community, and to raise the profile of this issue. They essentially do very worthwhile community activities for our area.

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