Advocacy Disability Ethnicity Community (ADEC) is a Victorian organisation which strives to empower people with a disability from non-English-speaking backgrounds, their carers, and families, to fully participate as members of the Victorian community.

The organisation offers a range of exciting courses and services to people from CALD backgrounds.

For example, two new courses for this year are ‘Managing inappropriate sexual behaviour’ and ‘Activities for people with a disability in in-home or centre-based respite’. Workshops are delivered in a disability context and designed for carers and direct care workers.

Innovative services include the new ‘African mental health wellbeing support group’ and the ‘Caring Together’ program.

The African mental health wellbeing support group is open to people experiencing mental illness who are under the care of a psychiatrist, general medical practitioner, or a mental health worker, and to any individual carer or consumer who feels they would benefit from the support group.

The group aims to create an informal self-help network for people with mental illness and their carers and to help prevent isolation.

They also try and facilitate social and recreational activities, provide information about services available in the community and facilitate access to these services so that people experiencing mental health issues can live confidently in their community.

‘Caring Together’ is a new carer-driven service being sponsored by the Northern Mental Health Alliance. It provides additional support to carers and families across the Northern region of Melbourne and is about carers assisting other carers with peer support.

This innovative new program offers carers the opportunity to talk to another carer about the many worries that may present when a family member or friend becomes unwell with mental illness. Through working in partnership with clinical and community services in the Northern region, the Caring Together project offers the opportunity to seek more information about all the mental health and carers services available.

The Peer Support Workers are people you can go to for support, information and referrals, because sometimes it can be helpful to talk to someone in person, who can listen and be there for you, as well as explore different pathways to recovery. This service is particularly helpful to those who find it difficult to express themselves over the phone and prefer to talk face-to-face with someone about what is going on.

The Peer Support Workers have experience as carers of people with a mental illness and provide valuable and compassionate support to assist families who are supporting someone with mental illness.

You can find out more about ADEC by phoning 03 - 9480 1666 or visiting the website at: http://www.adec.org.au/index.html