Hamilton Centre Podcast | Exploring Mental Health & Addiction · Hamilton Centre

EP 9 - Two years of the Hamilton Centre: Advancing mental health and addiction care

·1 hr 5 min·4 clips

Patients tell doctors what doctors want to hear—but that's not what they actually need.

Hamilton Centre uses its two-year anniversary episode to look back on the work of building more integrated mental health and addiction care. It starts by framing the podcast as a space for leaders, service providers, workers, and people with living and lived experience to reflect on integrated care in Victoria. The episode opens with acknowledgments to First Nations people and traditional owner groups within Victoria. From there, the conversation turns to stigma and community attitudes around mental health and addiction. It also treats co-occurring issues as a reason services need to be safe, accessible, and inclusive. The episode presents lived experience as practical knowledge. That idea comes through in the discussion of peers, recovery, and the value of bringing people with direct experience into formal care systems. The guest says people with lived experience can teach us, and describes the inclusion of peers and lived experience workers as a meaningful change in integration. The guests reflect on how far integration has come. They also note that it is still complex. A major part of the conversation looks at what policy changes would support broader access to care. The discussion stays close to structural questions, including inequality and the taxation system as a driver. It also points to community decisions, leadership, and education as part of the conditions that shape care. Another thread is the idea of alcohol and other drug use as a spectrum rather than a hard divide between ordinary use and addiction. That framing opens up more points of intervention and assistance. The conversation keeps returning to the practical reality of integrated care: what helps people, families, carers, and workers, and what it takes to make services more inclusive.

As heard by us

A careful anniversary conversation about stigma, integrated care, and the system around it.

The Hamilton Centre marks its two-year anniversary with a conversation that keeps its attention on integrated care in mental health and addiction services in Victoria.

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Why you'd press play

Listen if you want a clear-eyed look at integrated care in mental health and addiction services, from stigma to the future of service design in Victoria.

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