Below is a poster, originally written for our Pride Day. It forms part of LLEW’s oral history as related to me by more than one source. I cannot vouch for its historical accuracy, but it is certainly True in the deepest sense.

It describes and references the ‘history-book facts’ of how the first LLEW type jobs in Victoria rolled out – as innovations in a couple of small teams, then, all at once, instituted in every Area Mental Health Service.

The oral history concerns a ‘behind the scenes’ view of how LLEW got put into Area Mental Health Services.

The initial small projects got a nice award for being innovative; no-one rushed to take up the idea of LLEW until a Health department meeting, a little later.

A local hospital had been built, and funds put aside for staffing. Then just before completion, wild weather hit, and the damage put back completion for months. That wasn’t the problem, because … insurance.

The crisis was they had almost 2 months wages allocated for initial staffing in the budget and it couldn’t be used there. That was a disaster, because if they got to June 30 with a surplus in staffing, next year’s staffing budget would be reduced by the amount of the surplus because … rules.

After I would guess a few suggestions for use of small amounts here and there, someone came up with a good idea; ‘Hey, you know that Staff-Consumer-Consultants thing? We could split the money and give it to services to employ those consumer whatevers in each service for the next year! That would be on staffing so, no cuts next budget!’

And the rest is History.

But the poster also describes my personal interpretation of the events described and why they convince me we have support at the Highest possible level :).

Have a peek!