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Mental Health Carers NSW

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Mental Health Carers NSW

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As a peak body, MHCN works with and for mental health carers in NSW. Mental Health Carers NSW (‘MHCN’, formerly ARAFMI NSW) is a non-government organisation.

We represent the voices and lived experience of carers which help us to advocate systemically for mental health reform. We are the peak body for mental health carers in NSW. As a peak, we engage in systemic advocacy to reflect the voices and needs of carers and drive change in the mental health system. We primarily achieve this through our policy work. Additionally, MHCN also engages in capacity development activities such as upskilling mental health carers and relevant others through training. We also facilitate events, produce informational resources, and engage with carers through our Mental Health Carer Advocacy Network project.

30/10/2026

📣 Mental Health Carers NSW (MHCN) are pleased to invite members to the Annual General Meeting (AGM) for 2026, featuring a special memorial service for Anne Stedman, MHCN’s President and much-loved mental health carer advocate, who passed away in June 2026.

This in-person event will take place on Thursday, 26 November 2026 at the Sydney Masonic Centre, Sydney NSW 2000.

Event schedule:
12.00pm - 1.00pm: Anne Stedman’s memorial
1.00pm - 1.45pm: Light lunch
1.45pm - 2.00pm: AGM Registration
2.00pm - 4.00pm: Annual General Meeting

Please note: Anne Stedman’s memorial is open to anyone however the AGM is only open to members of MHCN. Registrant names will be cross checked against membership for the AGM.

Tickets are limited and registration is essential.

🔗 Register here - https://buff.ly/G5pOyH3

25/10/2026

🎙️Caring Between Minds Episode 7 is LIVE!🎙️

Tanya became a carer long before she realised how much it would ask of her. Supporting her husband through Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, caring for her father through cancer and grieving her mother’s sudden death left her living in a constant state of crisis.

In Episode 7, Tanya speaks with Patty Kikos about ambiguous grief, burnout, isolation and the pain of watching someone you love slowly change while the world around you keeps moving. She shares what happened when she finally found support, reclaimed pieces of herself and discovered that carers deserve care too.

Listen to Episode 7 on:
▪️Spotify - https://buff.ly/ud75XRm
▪️Apple Podcast - https://buff.ly/V4VqHUR
▪️SimpleCast - https://buff.ly/HqdraQC
▪️YouTube - https://buff.ly/kFvWPp8

👍️Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe!

21/10/2026

📆 What has MHCN been up to this Mental Health Month?

▪️ In celebration of Carers Week, we hosted an exclusive wellness event for members of our advocacy groups and mental health carers nominated by their local community organisations. Facilitated by SoundFlow.au Founder Natalie Grace, the session gave carers dedicated time to pause and receive care themselves. An immersive soundscape of singing bowls, gongs, chimes and therapeutic vocals helped attendees unwind and recharge. Each attendee also left with a goodie bag of self-care gifts to enjoy at home.

▪️ On 8 October, MHCN CEO Jonathan Harms was a panel guest at the Mindgardens Psychosis Forum. Discussions explored the role of specialist services in assessing people experiencing psychosis, as well as questions about unmet need within the public mental health system. The panel also looked at approaches beyond medication, highlighting the potential role of talking-based approaches in helping people make sense of distressing experiences, engage with treatment and improve outcomes alongside standard early psychosis services.

▪️ We also had a wonderful time meeting members of the carer community in Cabramatta earlier this month. Hosted by Fairfield City Council as part of National Carers Week, the event featured stalls from local community organisations and services, including MHCN, Carers NSW and the Transcultural Mental Health Centre. Attendees enjoyed a range of free activities, along with translated carer resources and interpreters for those who needed them.

Thank you to all the wonderful carers we had the pleasure of meeting this month, to Natalie Grace for creating such a calming and restorative experience and to the Mindgardens and Fairfield City Council teams for hosting these special events!

15/10/2026

For National Carers Week, MHCN CEO, Jonathan Harms, and Laura Knight, Carer and MHCN Organisational Development Manager, spoke with Fran Kelly on The Radio National Hour. They spoke about the everyday reality of caring for a loved one with mental illness, and MHCN’s podcast, Caring Between Minds, hosted by Patty Kikos

Laura has cared for her mum, who lives with schizophrenia, for most of her life. She spoke openly about the mix of emotions carers carry, and her advice for others: “Caring can be hard. It can be complex. We do it because we love our people… There’s a lot of emotions that can go with caring, like grief and love, and these things can coexist at the same time. So do not feel guilty about the range of emotions that you’re feeling.”

Jonathan spoke about why carers so often end up as the advocate in a system that offers little between crisis care and recovery: “We don’t provide much more than emergency and acute care, and that’s actually not when people make their recovery.”

He also pointed to the scale of carers’ unpaid contribution, and the lack of support they receive in return: “There’s been recent studies which have shown that in dollar values, the families and carers of people with mental health concerns actually provide more support than all the state and federal mental health services put together… These [NDIS] changes are handing back thousands of hours of work and risk to carers.”

When asked how she felt about the recent NDIS changes, Laura said: “Carers save the government millions of dollars. This is how we’re repaid. It’s not good enough.”

🔗 Hear the full interview on ABC listen: https://buff.ly/p76ZOJY
🔗 Listen to Caring Between Minds wherever you get your podcasts: https://buff.ly/2SMw61N

13/10/2026

📣 Internal papers released this week through Parliament show NSW Health estimated in December 2024 that public mental health services are short $550-600 million a year in frontline staff. Its own planning work found psychosocial support needs to double, another $187 million a year.

That is a gap of about $787 million a year. 29% of people in NSW with severe mental health challenges cannot get care. 220,000 people currently missing out on the long-term mental health support that they need.

NSW Health advised against releasing the figure because “releasing the full quantum of the gap could require NSW to deliver one of the largest expansions of mental health services (and infrastructure) in recent history” and could “create reputational damage,” if they could not fund a gap they identified.

For the first time, the gap has a number.

We are asking the NSW Government to:
▪️Complete and publish the full gap analysis, covering hospital, community and psychosocial services
▪️Publish its existing estimates, with their assumptions
▪️Release the district-level results, so we can see where the gaps are
▪️Repeat the analysis every year and make a plan to fund and fill the gaps.

This is a result of years of sustained advocacy from MHCN and other members of the NSW Mental Health Alliance.

For many of us who have experienced the inadequacy mental health services in NSW, the size of the gap is no surprise. But now we have a number we can point to and advocate for. Behind that number are people, who are struggling to find the care they need and deserve.

🔗 Read the full story in today’s Sydney Morning Herald - https://buff.ly/bsKgn9Q
🔗 Read the joint media release with BEING - Mental Health Consumers Ltd, Mental Health Coordinating Council and the Royal Australian New Zealand College of Psychiatrists -https://buff.ly/WfjGoSe

13/10/2026

Ahead of the 2027 NSW State Election, Mental Health Coordinating Council is calling on all parties and candidates to put community-based mental health care first.

Community-managed mental health organisations play an important role in helping people stay well, recover and remain connected to their communities. But too many people are still missing out on the support they need.

We’re joining Mental Health Coordinating Council in calling for greater investment in the services, supports and workforce needed to make community-based mental health care available to more people.

🔗 Learn more here - https://buff.ly/LnDKdtv

13/10/2026

📣 From 12 October 2026, Legal Aid NSW has stopped providing legal assistance to patients in public hospital mental health wards who are facing Mental Health Review Tribunal (MHRT) hearings to authorise involuntary treatment. Due to funding cutbacks, Legal Aid will only represent people in narrowly defined matters under the Mental Health Act, mainly initial involuntary detention.

The MHRT oversees the decisions of doctors to detain a person in a mental health unit against their will, but also other aspects of involuntary treatments. With nearly 7,000 Tribunal hearings reported each year, patients will no longer have any legal representatives to provide advice or advocacy when they appeal their involuntary detention or proposed treatment. Many of these patients cannot afford or find a private lawyer, and without representation they will struggle to challenge doctors’ opinions about the need for involuntary care.

Consumers facing the Mental Health Review Tribunal are experiencing severe mental health issues and the decisions of the Tribunal significantly impact their rights and freedoms. To withdraw this longstanding Legal Aid service will have a major impact on the confidence they and their families and carers can have that their human rights are being respected according to law.

MHCN has written to the Attorney General urgently requesting that this decision be reversed and funding provided to the NSW Legal Aid Service to continue this vital work. We also requested that the implementation of this reduction in service is delayed so that appropriate consultations can take place across mental health services in NSW about its impacts.

Jonathan Harms, CEO of MHCN, says: “This is a set-back for the human rights of consumers who are entitled to know that their liberty is only taken away when absolutely necessary and after due process has been observed.”

🔗 Read the full media release here - https://buff.ly/lvuYGnz

12/10/2026

From October 11-17, we’re challenging common misconceptions about OCD and highlighting experiences that often go unrecognized or misunderstood.

OCD can involve intrusive fears about harm, illness, relationships, responsibility, mistakes, morality, identity, contamination, or things feeling “just right.” Compulsions can include visible actions, such as checking or washing, but they may also be internal: replaying conversations, counting, mentally reviewing events, seeking reassurance, avoiding triggers, or trying to cancel out an unwanted thought.

OCD can focus on many different fears and concerns, and compulsions are not always visible to others. While the specific thoughts and behaviours can vary widely from person to person, they can become time-consuming, interfere with daily life, and cause significant distress.

🔗 Learn more via the International OCD Foundation website – https://buff.ly/vcR3SGS

11/10/2026

🎙️Caring Between Minds Episode 6 is LIVE!🎙️

For almost two decades, Alex believed that caring meant finding solutions, preventing crises and holding everything together. Supporting loved ones through complex mental health challenges taught him that love and control are not the same thing.

In this episode, Patty Kikos speaks with Alex about learning to sit with uncertainty, setting boundaries without losing connection, and discovering that carers have their own recovery journeys too. He reflects on letting go of the pressure to fix everything, finding hope for his own future and why sometimes the greatest act of care is simply being present.

Listen to Episode 6 on:
▪️Spotify - https://buff.ly/lKEU1vw
▪️Apple Podcast - https://buff.ly/RurBefO
▪️SimpleCast - https://buff.ly/aSycEjF
▪️YouTube - https://buff.ly/lLUBQyW

👍️Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe!

08/10/2026

📣 World Mental Health Day is an opportunity to meaningfully engage with people with lived experience (PWLE) of mental health conditions and to recognize their knowledge as a vital form of expertise.

This year’s campaign calls for their voices to shape the policies, services and decisions that affect their lives. Lived experience is what someone has experienced themselves, especially when it gives the individual knowledge or understanding that people who have only heard or learnt about such experiences do not have.

Too often, people with lived experience are asked to share their stories but excluded from decisions. Meaningful engagement extends beyond simply being heard.

It means creating opportunities for people to influence decisions, co-design services, strengthen peer-led approaches, challenge stigma and strengthen accountability. When people with lived experience are meaningfully engaged, mental health systems are likely to become more person-centred, rights-based and responsive to people's needs and concerns.

🔗 Learn more about the World Health Organization (WHO) campaign here - https://buff.ly/fdQSSr0

Address

Suite 2. 03, Level 2, 3 Spring Street, Sydney NSW 2000
Pyrmont, NSW
2000

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Website

http://www.mentalhealthcarersnsw.org/

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