About the program
Resolve aims to improve the well-being of individuals experiencing severe, persistent mental health issues. Resolve is a community-based program led by peer workers with lived experience of mental health issues that is expected to work with approximately 530 people in the Western New South Wales and Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health Districts. The program is delivered by Flourish Australia.
Resolve provides comprehensive, recovery-oriented psychosocial support for a period of two years, tailored to each participant.
In addition to clinical mental health services from the Local Health Districts, participants have access to crisis care with around-the-clock peer support, outreach support to people in their homes and in the community, group programs to develop individual capacity for managing recovery, case management, linkages to specialist drug and alcohol services, the opportunity to seek respite for short stays in a home-like environment at the Resolve centres, and a 'warm line' for after-hours peer support.
The program aims to support people in their recovery journey to improve their wellbeing and increase their capacity to manage symptoms, de-escalate crisis, and use safe, appropriate alternatives to hospital admission.
Key learnings
An outcomes focus, continuous improvement mindset and data analysis can help partners to explore potential service adaptations to advance outcomes.
Outcomes based funding allows flexibility to adapt the service model as payments are not tied to specified activities. This may require a shift in mindset for commissioners (funders) and service providers to actively look for potential improvements. Innovative solutions to operational challenges can be found when the parties embrace the Social impact investments (SII) as a powerful collaboration tool by openly discussing challenges and jointly developing solutions. This differs from the traditional commissioning relationship where providers are responsible for service delivery and commissioners monitor their predefined activities and outputs.
There was the opportunity to exercise this flexibility when the Resolve program faced a narrowing pool of eligible participants. The parties explored options to adapt the original delivery plan and decided to extend the program’s catchment area. Western Sydney Local Health District’s data analysis identified an area of demand – enabling the program to support more people who could benefit from Resolve and provide enhanced care to some people already in the program. In collaboration with Flourish, a resourcing plan was developed to service this expanded catchment, including adding a staff member for the area, and use their existing local office premises to run group activities.