Supporting people on Community Treatment Orders

The International Centre for Mental Health Social Research is very pleased to welcome Dr Lisa Brophy from University of Melbourne / Mind Australia to give our next seminar on Friday 12th July.

Community Treatment Orders (CTOs) enable involuntary treatment of people with mental illness in the community, but they present many ethical and practice dilemmas. They are a feature of all mental health legislation in Australia.

New legislation proposed in Victoria is attempting to address the problems and unintended consequences attributed to the implementation of CTOs.

Many people on CTOs have complex needs and while CTOs may be one method of ensuring they do not fall through the cracks in service delivery, Lisa will argue at this seminar that CTOs are a very limited intervention in ensuring access to mental health care and treatment.

Lisa will also argue that CTOs may represent a barrier to obtaining recovery focused community mental health services. People on CTOs deserve greater recognition of their needs and improved innovation in service delivery to enable a shift to less reliance on coercive interventions. She will draw on various research projects she has undertaken focused on the experience of people on CTOs and other key stakeholders and her work on identifying principles for good practice.

This lunchtime seminar is free and open to the public. It will be held at the University of York on 12th July from 1-2pm and all are welcome to attend.

For further information, please see the Centre’s events page.