May 2025 Edition
Implementation focus: Dr Tom Cant visits Australia
For those who don’t know Tom – he is a consultant psychiatrist and Open Dialogue specialist who shared his work to support the development of more culturally informed, relational and compassionate forms of mental health care.
Thank you Tom and to our partners and colleagues at Goulburn Valley Health, Shepparton Secondary College, One Door and MinterEllison for hosting four fantastic sessions where we gathered to hear from Tom about his work supporting the implementation of Peer Supported Open Dialogue in a UK NHS Community Service.
Sally Thomas (Goulburn Valley Health) and Anita McCurdy (Shepparton Youth Foyer) kicked off the sessions in Victoria with the first official presentation of the Goulburn Region Open Dialogue Connect (GRODC) – a new platform for mental health service providers to collaborate with other community organisations to implement the Open Dialogue approach.
Q+A with Dr Tom Cant
What stood out to you while visiting Shepparton community?
While in Shepparton I saw how a number of community agencies are genuinely coming together with a sense of curiosity about ways in which the people they are working alongside could be better supported. It felt like a very trusting environment where everyone present had the needs of people they are working with at the front of their minds.
What do you think is the big opportunity right now for Australia with Open Dialogue?
Open Dialogue is defined by the needs and values of the communities and cultures it seeks to support and empower. It will possibly look different in and across Australia in the future and I am excited to learn how people will find their way of implementing Open Dialogue in different contexts. I do believe it could radically shift the shape of services and the experience of people receiving them.
What are the top three things that a mental health service needs to think about when implementing Open Dialogue?
1. Training in the technical and value-based development of staff now and in the future, and how will this be supported, evaluated and integrated within the day-to-day function of mental health services.
2. How and where will people with lived experience be included in whatever offer emerges and how will their roles, voices and values be supported and held by the organisations involved.
3. How can operational service structures maximise the opportunity to achieve key elements of the Open Dialogue approach, including but not confined to, psychological continuity, power and responsibility, transparency, an immediate response, and polyphony, among others.
An update on our collaboration with local services in Shepparton
Local service providers in the Goulburn Region, led by the local CAMHS and the Youth Foyer have identified Open Dialogue as the vehicle they need to create a whole-of-community response to mental health and wellbeing in our region.
The approach makes sure young people are connected to a network of support in their community.
We are ready and committed to developing a coordinated mental health response that brings together mental health services and community supports.
GRODC now has seven local services who are ready to create a youth and family-centred approach where people can shape their wellbeing and recovery journey with the support of their family, friends, peers and local services.
CEO BLOG
By Keith Bryant
The case for systemic change when working in Place
Recently I attended the Prevention in Place conference in Naarm / Melbourne where I was inspired by the possibility for large-scale change by re-thinking how our systems interact with people and local services in place.
Core to our work at the Open Dialogue Centre is how we can work in place-based settings with our partners when invited, but always with a way to work through the bigger issues about the role of systems at a local level.
We have to address the gaps, inequities and power imbalances within our systems and the impact this has on people’s lives – as they transition from one phase of learning, work and life to another.
Working in Place means working with and in systems if we want to create transformative multi-generational change.
What gets me up each day is knowing that we have an innovative approach with Open Dialogue in that it can work on many levels – for people and families who benefit from social networks, but also by enabling local services to transform from a crisis-focus to youth and family-centred care.
One of most effective ways for Open Dialogue to drive change is within place-based settings where people can shape the way it gets implemented– with local services, so that its highly responsive to each person’s and community’s needs.
Two things stand out to me right now when thinking about Place-based work and the mental health system:
- We need to address systemic issues that are part of place, as without ways to nudge and shift the things that are not working, we won’t see better outcomes.
- The discipline and structure of an Open Dialogue network meeting facilitates a different way of communicating and coming together between people, families and services and this in itself leads to changes in the system.
I’m excited and utterly convinced that with a whole-of-community response to mental healthcare and wellbeing in Places like Shepparton and Townsville (where we have built great relationships with our partners) we will see some amazing results – both socially and economically.
If you’d like to know more about how you can support the Centre’s collaboration with our community partners in the Goulburn Region please get in touch with me at info@opendialoguecentre.org.au
Keith Bryant, CEO
