The closure of Brian Hennessy House rehabilitation centre will create a gap in Canberra's mental health sector if new supported housing projects are not funded in future health budgets.
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ACT Health has a number of supported accommodation initiatives in the pipeline to ensure current residents are not left behind when the Bruce facility closes and existing services are transitioned to the new University of Canberra Public Hospital and the $43 million secure mental health centre in Symonston.
Brian Hennessy House currently provides 30 beds for people with a mental illness including a combination of residential and active rehabilitation services alongside 10 low-level secure beds.
The low security spots will be transitioned to the Secure Mental Health Unit.
The other 20 beds will be transferred to the new northside hospital for temporary 12 to 18 month accommodation alongside therapeutic, psychological and vocational programs.
Mental Health, Justice Health and Alcohol & Drug Services executive director Katrina Bracher said Brian Hennessy House would not close until the northside hospital was operational within the next four years.
While the future of the building was uncertain, ACT Health would keep the land for health purposes, such as rehabilitation services.
Ms Bracher said the changes left long-term residents without a clear path.
"If you look at the ACT environment now, where would those people go?" she said.
"We've had a lot of feedback and concern from families and the consumers themselves, our staff and us. I absolutely acknowledge and have said a number of times to consumers and families that this must be very scary, very worrying, what the alternatives for those people will be."
ACT Health is working on a number of options to plug the hole in accommodation.
Plans for smaller shared accommodation and a larger model of about four units alongside a 24-hour care worker are both in the pipeline as part of planning for the 2015-2016 ACT Budget.
"A number of people at Brian Hennessy have lived together for a long period of time and they have actually said to us at previous forums that they want to live with each other," Ms Bracher said.
"It might be that we work with Housing ACT for a home for two or three people with ... community sector organisations wrapping around them and clinical staff.
"The other model [is] three or four units together and a fifth unit for a 24-hour care worker to live in and to provide the care and support. Those little pods are typically built close to suburban shopping centres so that people can just wander over, get what they need, close to their GP so they're connected into the community."
ACT Health has also flagged Brian Hennessy House residents suitable for Gungahlin's Common Ground facility, due to open early next year.
The project is designed to house homeless or at-risk Canberrans, including people with mental illness.
Ms Bracher said a new mental health day service at Belconnen Health Centre and the expanding Step Up Step Down service, which provides adults with temporary supported accommodation, would meet the needs of some of Brian Hennessy House's current users once the facility closed.
She has also organised a Queensland Health project team responsible for transitioning 300 people from psychiatric hospitals into the community to talk with ACT health representatives as well as individuals and families.
Meanwhile, staff, consumers and their families are also preparing for a transition into the trial National Disability Insurance Scheme, which will affect most Brian Hennessy House users.
Ms Bracher said none of the centre's 50-odd staff will be left without a job but will require further training around new models of care at the Secure Mental Health Unit and the new hospital.
"We will need all of them and more," she said.
"It's hard work in addition to the clinical work that you do [but] the staff have been very interested and quite positive."