The leadership of people who have lived experience working to end the use of seclusion and restraint in breach of consumers’ human rights in Victoria’s public mental health system.
We acknowledge the trauma, indignity, breached rights, and loss of trust caused by seclusion and restraint to thousands of people who were already in distress.
WHAT ARE SECLUSION AND RESTRAINT?
WHERE ARE THEY USED?
There is no place for restrictive practices in the mental health system.
Seclusion and restraint are recognised to be traumatic human rights breaches. They carry the risk of serious physical injury, even death. They have no place in a safe, therapeutic, rights-based health system. Plans are underway to eliminate seclusion and restraint from Victoria’s mental health system by 2031, but our position is that the elimination timeframe is far too long.
2023 CONSUMER LEADERSHIP TO END SECLUSION & RESTRAINT
During the first half of 2023, VMIAC was funded by the Victorian Department of Health to gather perspectives for its Strategy for the Elimination of Seclusion and Restraint from consumers who had experienced, witnessed, or feared these practices while using Victorian public mental health services.
Summary of consumer recommendations
Recommendations in more detail
VMIAC made a public submission to the Department in response to their draft Strategy, opened for public comment in August 2023.
VMIAC SECLUSION REPORTS
VMIAC has researched and produced three Seclusion Reports, with the fourth Seclusion Report due to be released in 2023. A central goal of the Seclusion Reports has been to provide clear information to Victorian consumers about the safety or dangerousness of local mental health services, in relation to seclusion and restraint.
The Seclusion Reports are also an advocacy tool that helps make more visible the serious issue of restrictive practices, and the relative performance of different public mental health services. Responsibility for regularly producing this kind of report should rest with the sector, government, and regulatory bodies, and we hope to see them take this up. But to date there is little transparency or accountability for the mental health sector, and public data is often inaccessible.
Seclusion Report #3
4 Page Summary Seclusion Report #3
League Table of Services Seclusion Report #3
Seclusion and Restraint Report #2
Seclusion and Restraint Report #1
MEDIA INQUIRIES
Communications
communications@vmiac.org.au
Indigo Daya – Seclusion Report #3 Author/Survivor Advocate
Twitter – @IndigoDaya
IndigoDaya@gmail.com
Additional Media contacts, including academic and legal experts on seclusion, and consumers with lived experience, available on request.
To contact the VMIAC Research team research@vmiac.org.au
