Deinstitutionalisation and mental health activism in Australia: emerging voices of individuals with lived experience of severe mental distress, 1975–1985

Abstract

Starting in the 1960s, large numbers of patients in Australia’s mental hospitals were released even though hardly any support services were available in the community. By the 1970s, a small number of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, volunteers, and consumer advocates were building alliances and coalitions with each other and with politicians and health bureaucrats to realise change. Using archival records and interviews as sources, we analyse how, in the early 1980s, Simon Champ, Meg Smith, and Janet Meagher, three pioneering Australian consumer advocates, started to speak out and influence discussions about mental health policy. They were also invited to join boards of non-government organisations in mental health care, foreshadowing later developments. Today, the participation of consumers of mental health care in mental health services is taken for granted and mandated, and most services have consumer advisory groups.