Mental Health: Navigating Life Service 
WHAT IS NAVIGATING LIFE?
The Goulburn Valley Division of General Practice, through funding from the Department of Health and Ageing, employs a multi-disciplinary team of mental health clinicians to provide free counselling to patients referred by their general practitioners. The team comprises of a psychologist, social workers, mental health nurses and generalist counsellors.
The Navigating Life team also has a community support worker who organizes and facilitates a variety of programs to support the general community in drought affected areas.
WHERE ARE THE SERVICES PROVIDED?
Free counselling services and psychological interventions are provided from:
• Our premises at 222 Wyndham Street, Shepparton
• Medical practices and other locations in Cobram, Seymour, Kyabram, Mooroopna, Murchison, Nagambie, Nathalia, Numurkah, Rushworth, and Tatura
• Outreach to aged care facilities
Support Services include:
• Mental Health First Aid Training
• Programs offered in response to expressed community needs
WHAT TYPE OF ISSUES MIGHT BE ASSISTED BY NAVIGATING LIFE?
Mental health issues including:
• Depression
• Perinatal Depression
• Stress
• Anxiety and Panic Disorder
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Bi-polar disorder
• Adolescent counselling
• Family and couples counselling
• Separation and divorce
• Loss and Grief
• Domestic violence and trauma
• Chronic pain
• Alcohol and other Drugs issues
• Support to the elderly
• Effects of drought (including support and referral)
• Or, any other issue that you have in your life that you think could benefit from discussion with a skilled therapist
COUNSELLING AND SUPPORT SERVICES
All services are confidential and can be accessed by General Practitioners.
On referral, clients can receive 6 free counselling sessions.
Navigating Life services are provided free of charge.
To be eligible for the free Navigating Life service, the client needs to agree to have their GP involved in their mental health care.
ALLIED HEALTH SCRIPTS
To assist with the volume of referrals and also to access specialist skills, Navigating Life uses allied health scripts to refer on to approved allied health professionals in private practice . This referral provides the client with up to six sessions with the allied health professional.
The Division will fund the majority of the fees for the appointments with the contracted Allied Health Professionals. However, some Allied Health Professionals do charge a co-payment - this will be discussed with the client at the time of the referral.
IS THIS SERVICE CONFIDENTIAL?
The Department of Health and Ageing require the Division to collect statistical data. This helps the Division to understand more about the services we are providing. All statistical data provided by the Division is de-identified – which means it does not contain the client’s name or any identifying details.
All Navigating Life counsellors and support staff are bound by confidentiality, and the Division does not keep any hard copy files on clients. All client notes are stored in a secured computerised software system that is only allows access by the client’s counsellor and the Navigating Life Team Leader for quality control purposes.
If a client is referred to a contracted Allied Health Professional he /she will be required to send some data to the Division for statistical purposes. Again, this will be de-identified.
The Navigating Life staff and /or the contracted Allied Health Professional will ask patients to sign a consent form to ensure that they understand that he/she will be sharing certain information with your doctor. This ensures that your doctor is kept at the centre of the client’s health care.
CONTACTING CLIENTS
It is important that GPs include the patient’s correct address and contact telephone number on the referral form and whether or not they are comfortable with the Intake Counsellor calling them to discuss their needs.
The Navigating Life team allocates clinicians to clients at their weekly allocation meeting. Great effort is taken to meet specific requests, such as a clinician of the patient’s own gender.
HOW DO GPS ACCESS NAVIGATING LIFE?
If you think your patients would benefit from any of the Navigating Life services, show him/her our brochure, which you can download here.
Our preferred method to receive referrals is via secure messaging using ReferralNet. Templates for your clinical software can be downloaded from the Resources/Downloads section of this website. For information about sending referrals via ReferralNet contact Rob Fairmaid by This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or phone 03 5831 5399.
Alternatively, GPs can download the Navigating Life referral form here and completed referrals can be faxed to 03 5831 8960 or posted to:
