Indonesia

Shifting minds in Indonesia

September 22, 2013

In September 2013, Asia Australia Mental Health (AAMH) and its Australian partners, Mind, were asked by the Ministry of Social Affairs, Indonesia to provide a two-day training seminar to key mental health workers in Jakarta. Anthony Stratford, Senior Advisor Recovery from Mind Australia, and AAMH program manager David Paroissien delivered the training, which focused on Principles of Recovery Oriented Practice.

This year the Governor of Jakarta, Mr. Joko Widodo, committed funding to develop one of Jakarta’s first Day Centres, set up to support the recovery of those who have experienced mental ill-health. This inspiring new initiative has been warmly welcomed by the Ministry of Social Affairs, Indonesia, led by the Director General, Dr. Samsudi.  Under its strong partnership with the Ministry of Social Affairs, AAMH and Mind were honoured to deliver a workforce capacity building initiative to support the new Day Centre.

The initial Day Centre has been earmarked to be developed in Tebet, Jakarta, and run through the Ministry of Social Affairs and a team of dedicated staff.

In the evaluation of the training, Pak Rudi Budijanto commented that, “after this training I had a greater understanding of recovery in mental health, and will work on the key issue of stigma as an issue for mistreatment of our people”.

The two-days created lively interactive discussion about how recovery oriented principles could be relevant and applicable to Indonesia.   At the end of the training, participants reflected on what they might do to change their current practice. Each person provided inspiring goals, including the increased use of trained peers, improved communication with families and community, programs to have mental health in school curriculum, and many other initiatives.

Ibu Novianti added that, “I hope this recovery training will directly improve my practice with patients”.

AAMH and Mind Australia are grateful for the support of this training by the Commonwealth through the Australia-Indonesia Institute of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.