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When looking for support for depression you have several options. Professional support can be sourced in a number of ways, from speaking with a health professional or psychologist to entering a residential mental health treatment program.
For people that are not feeling themselves and would like a professional opinion whether they are experiencing depression or low mood your GP is good place to start. Most GP’s will do a brief assessment and determine if medication is required, or you may be referred to a psychologist to start therapy. For those who have experienced poor mental health over a long period of time you may require a more intensive for of treatment and could seek the support from a residential treatment program.
Residential programs come in many forms and finding the best suited program to meet your personal needs is essential. Many people enter residential program’s or private hospitals only to find that they are surrounded by people struggling with long term addiction issues such as heroin and ice addiction and feel they are not receiving the support they need.
Another concern that people report is feeling overlooked due to serious nature of some of the patient’s mental illness who are in the program, and find the resources of staff being absorbed by these individuals. Its also important to consider if the program has the level of expertise and professional clinical support required, as many programs fail to offer qualified psychologists, psychiatrists, and health professionals. The search for the most suitable program to meet your or your loved one’s needs can be complex and exhausting.
A useful tool is to know what ask when you are calling different services. We have provided a list of questions below to assist in this process.
- What are your success rates? If a program is unable to provide rates of success, they are not doing follow up calls which would indicate a lack of follow up support.
- Will I have to participate in groups? It’s important to know if you will be required to participate in groups if you prefer not to have to share your personal life with others.
- Will I have my own room? If you have to share a room with others its recommended that you find out who as you may be sharing with a very complex patient.
- Do you offer support after treatment ends? Comprehensive aftercare is not an add-on to treatment, rather it is an extremely important component and should always be available and at least twice a week.
- What is the aftercare, how comprehensive is it? If aftercare is available you need to know how it is done, as a phone call once a week in insufficient. Regular therapy should be offered as a standard in any treatment setting.
- Can my family participate? If you would like you family to be educated around mental health and addiction this is critical to support you and themselves.
- Will private health insurance cover my treatment? Private insurance is only available in hospitals and not in private treatment centres.
- Can I speak to a health professional while my loved one is in treatment? Some services allow clients to have access to their phone and others don’t, its important to know a services policy if you would like to contact family.
- Does your program accept complex mental health or Veterans? This is important to know due to the large number of Veterans with complex PTSD seeking support from services and the ratio of Veterans to paying clients, as a Veteran heavy program can be extremely difficult for a young people and females to navigate.
If you would like to speak with our team to discuss the most suitable program for your loved one call 1300-360-995 today.
