Historically Community Focus has accomplished remarkable outcomes over its 20 plus year foundation. We suspect we are the oldest Mental Health/Psychosocial Peer organisation in Queensland utilising a community development approach to empower and strengthen our Peer community. Our organization is committed to encouraging cooperative practice, to embrace the diversity of our community. Embracing interaction between individuals “peers”, constitutes a community  within itself, from which access to other communities is made safer, and more possible.

There are many different types of “communities” — it is the right of each individual to choose which communities they  wish to belong to, and when and how they seek to achieve this…consider beginning with a facilitated environment where  people feel safe to come together to talk but more than that to be heard, that is our community.

A major focus of what we do is co-designing a collaborative response to promote and support good mental health and  well-being. Our goal is to work together to create a stronger, engaged and connected peer community, promoting active engagement in life.

Peers connecting with others in an empathetic and equal relationship that acknowledges a shared experience as a  starting point.

We have continued to complement our lived experience by exploring our own potential and applying learnings such as  Cert IV in Mental Health Peer Work to that potential.
Remembering that whatever direction we set remains our choice.

Imagine starting with:

• Conversations that provide a sense of connection, a relational process, rather than seeing an individual as a problem that needs to be fixed
• Promoting opportunities for people to rediscover and activate their own personal hidden resources, establishing you as  an expert in your own life
• Validating personal resilience, capacity for change, choice, and most of all hope
• Application of critical learning, and renaming of experience, developing a beneficial outcome for you the individuals who  engage with others as part of a change management strategy
• Supporting your voice as an experts in your own life, the promotion of self-advocacy

It is OK for people with a mental illness to form relationships with each other, their lived experience of mental health  challenges place them in a unique position to assist each other in their recovery, and in their efforts to re-establish  connections within the community however, it would be fair to say, focusing solely on people’s shared experience of  mental illness places to great an importance on that illness, and denies our shared humanity, which is the foundation for  establishing positive relationships.

We as a Peer community share a ‘lived experience’ of the challenges that have interrupted our lives, moving forward in  our transition to a life of purpose an meaning,  engaging in developing skills to manage our challenges. At the heart of our  organisation are the people who make up our community, our peers, uniting the unique aspects and diversity of  peers connecting with peers to create a stronger united and vibrant community, focused on the future and all its  possibilities.

Programs

National Disability Insurance Scheme

We are a registered NDIS provider we understand the requirements of NDIS from all perspectives and are well placed to provide NDIS support throughout the registration process and beyond. More information is provided on this website in NDIS we can assist you to put your plan into action,
Contact us to start the conversation.

For more information Click Here

Discovery Program

Peer led group programs that focus on inclusion and engagement in participation of
people who live with mental health challenges, to inspire and promote individual
capacity through exposure to a diversity of dedicated group programs.

For more information Click Here

Peers Engaged To Encourage Resilience & Recovery

PETERR is a Peer/Lived Experience Workforce, a workforce that brings something different to what is found in other professional support relationships and entrenched responses to mental health. PETERR achieve this by requiring lived experience workers to complete training and education that enhance capacity, all of our workers have  participated in required training to be accepted as part of PETERR. It is the expectation of PETERR that every peer worker will participate in further skills and development  training, supervision, peer hubs and networks to advance their practice.

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Shared Information, Education and Training

• Peer/Lived Experience Worker
  Our aim is to participate in the development of an emerging workforce that reflects all the ethics and values that inform lived experience as a principled contributor to the  mental health sector. Our commitment as a partner with TAFE East Coast is to develop and deliver support to this emerging workforce in their pursuit of learning, providing student placements, tutoring and other resources.

• Decluttering
  Supported planned response to individuals with excessive acquisition challenges, and an inability to discard large quantities of objects that cover areas in and outside the  home with potential risks to their health and safety. Supported and planned responses can take a lengthy amount of time to produce positive outcomes. Community Focus  provides supports with various option to be considered such as individual support where we visit your home and you set the pace to reach your goals, or we offer an 8 week  program to assist and promote change strategies engaging with others who share similar experiences we have a weekly support group
  

• WRAP
  Wellness Recovery Action Planning is used worldwide by people who are dealing with all kinds of health and life challenges, the program supports individuals to develop a  daily maintenance plan as well as “Wellness Tools” that they design and use to support resilience and recovery. Community Focus has provided training to staff to facilitate  WRAP Groups across the Sunshine Coast. There are many indicators that these groups work well for people on their journey of recovery.
  

• Mental Health Program
  Applies a range of information sharing platforms, focused on managing and maintaining well-being. Provided in a supportive and creative environment to promote  narratives, which contribute to personal agency and world-views. Holding the sense that developing positive progress cannot be driven from a culture of diagnosis and  deficits, rather they need to be driven from a culture of ability, capacity, and possibilities
  

Auspice/Sponsored Groups

Peer Alliance Sunshine Coast

PASC is a safe environment to provide equity, connection and support.
Meeting monthly, it is a space for networking collaboratively with Mental Health Peer Support workers, Peer Support volunteers, and students. To actively engage and  promote the Peer Support framework. Our purpose is to share information, hope, and to discuss how to reduce isolation, stigma and how to work towards sustaining the  integrity of the future of Mental Health Peer Support.

For more information Click Here

Fusion

A community collaboration to engage, inspire and direct the future of mental health and well-being. FUSION is a collective of agencies and individuals committed to working  together to promote and direct mental health and well-being activities and events; in partnership with communities.