Abstract
This chapter discusses mental health as a field of social work practice in which care and control dimensions are combined. It will explain the purpose of mental health legislation and how risk has influenced law, policy, and practice. The impact of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities (CRPD 2007), the international human rights instrument governing the rights of people with disabilities, will be considered, especially in relation to how it has led to considerable expectation that mental health law and policy, and social work practice, needs to be reconsidered with increased emphasis on human rights. The chapter moves on to focus on community treatment orders and supported decision-making as the two contexts of social work practice that illustrate the challenges. Finally, there is discussion about how social workers can engage in individual and systemic advocacy and support consumer empowerment. A contemporary challenge for social workers in mental health is ensuring that the obligations that many countries now hold to the CRPD are upheld.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams R, Dominelli L, Payne M (2002) Anti-oppressive practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke
Baldry E, Sotiri M (2014) Corrections, social work and prisons. In: Rice S, Day A (eds) Social work in the shadow of the law, 4th edn. The Federation Press, Annandale, pp 80–95
Bird V, Leamy M, Tew J et al (2014) Fit for purpose? Validation of a conceptual framework for personal recovery with current mental health consumers. Aust N Z J Psychiatry 48(7):644–653
Boardman J, Roberts G (2014) Risk, safety and recovery. Available vis Implementing recovery through organisational change (ImROC). https://imrocorg/resources/9-risk-safety-recovery/. Accessed 17 Sept 2018
Bracken P, Thomas P, Timimi S et al (2012) Psychiatry beyond the current paradigm. Br J Psychiatry 201(6):430–434
Brophy LM (2009) Using the emancipatory values of social work as a guide to the investigation: What processes and principles represent good practice with people on community treatment orders? PhD thesis, School of Nursing and Social Work, The University of Melbourne
Brophy L, Healy B (2014) Mental health: Mental health law and its implications for social work practice, (Chapter 15) in Rice, S and Day, Social Work in the Shadow of the Law, 4th Edition. The Federation Press, Sydney
Brophy L, McDermott F (2003) What’s driving involuntary treatment in the community? The social, policy, legal and ethical context. Australas Psychiatry 11(sup1):S84–S88
Brophy L, McDermott F (2013) Using social work theory and values to investigate the implementation of community treatment orders. Aust Soc Work 66(1):72–85
Brophy L, Roper C, Hamilton B et al (2016) Consumers ‘and their supporters’ perspectives on barriers and strategies to reducing seclusion and restraint in mental health settings. Aust Health Rev 40(6):599–604
Brophy L, McSherry B, Kokanovic R et al (2017) Guidelines for supported decision-making in mental health services. University of Melbourne, Melbourne. http://healthtalkaustralia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Guidelines-for-Supported-Decision-Making-in-Mental-Health-Services.pdf. Accessed 26 Dec 2019
Brophy L, Healy B, Maylea C (2018a) Mental health law and its implications for social work practice. In: Rice S, Day A, Briskman L (eds) Social work in the shadow of the law, 5th edn. The Federation Press, Sydney, pp 277–297
Brophy L, Ryan C, Weller P (2018b) Community treatment orders: the evidence and the ethical implications. In: Spivakovsky C, Seear K, Carter A (eds) Critical perspectives on coercive interventions. Routledge, London, pp 42–55
Butler J, Gambetti Z, Sabsay L (eds) (2016) Vulnerability in resistance. Duke University Press, Durham
Callaghan S, Ryan CJ (2016) An evolving revolution: evaluating Australia’s compliance with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in mental health law. Univ NSW Law J 39:596
Campbell J, Davidson G (2009) Coercion in the community: a situated approach to the examination of ethical challenges for mental health social workers. Ethics Soc Welf 3(3):249–263
Campbell J, Brophy L, Davidson G et al (2018) Legal capacity and the mental health social worker role: an international comparison. J Soc Work Pract 32(2):139–152
Carroll A, McSherry B (2015) Making defensible decisions in the era of recovery and rights. Australasian Psychiatry (first online) 26(5):474–477
Chung DT, Ryan CJ, Hadzi-Pavlovic D et al (2017) Suicide rates after discharge from psychiatric facilities: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiat 74(7):694–702
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) (2007) (resolution 61/106), opened for signature on 30 March 2007, entered into force into force on 3 May 2008
Corring D, O’Reilly R, Sommerdyk C (2017) A systematic review of the views and experiences of subjects of community treatment orders. Int J Law Psychiatry 52:74–80
Courtney M, Moulding NT (2014) Beyond balancing competing needs: embedding involuntary treatment within a recovery approach to mental health social work. Aust Soc Work 67(2):214–226
Davidson G, Brophy L, Campbell J et al (2016a) An international comparison of legal frameworks for supported and substitute decision-making in mental health services. Int J Law Psychiatry 44:30–40
Davidson G, Brophy L, Campbell J (2016b) Risk, recovery and capacity: competing or complementary approaches to mental health social work. Aust Soc Work 69(2):158–168
Dawson J, Szmukler G (2006) Fusion of mental health and incapacity legislation. Brit J Psychiat, 188:504–509
Deegan P (2005) The importance of personal medicine: a qualitative study of resilience in people with psychiatric disabilities. Scand J Public Healt, 33(66_suppl):29–35
Department of Health and Substance Abuse (2017) WHO Quality Rights: Act, Unite and Empower. WHO, Geneva. http://www.who.int/mental_health/policy/quality_rights/en/. Accessed 23 Sept 2009
Fletcher J, Hamilton B, Kinner S, Sutherland G, King K, Tellez JJ, Harvey C, Brophy L (2018) Working towards least restrictive environments in acute mental health wards in the context of locked door policy and practice. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. (first online) 28(2):538–550
Gibbs A, Dawson J, Mullen R (2005) Community treatment orders for people with serious mental illness: a New Zealand study. Br J Soc Work 36(7):1085–1100
Gooding P (2013) Supported decision-making: a rights-based disability concept and its implications for mental health law. Psychiatry Psychol Law 20(3):431–451
Gooding P (2017) A new era for mental health law and policy: supported decision-making and the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Government UK (2018) Final report of the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act 1983. December 2018. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/762206/MHA_reviewFINAL.pdf. Accessed 26 Dec 2018
Harding R (2017) What is legal capacity? Available from legal capacity. http://www.legalcapacity.org.uk/everyday-decisions/what-is-legal-capacity/. Accessed 30 May 2018
Human Rights Council (2017) Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, 35th session, UN Doc A/HRC/35/21. https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G17/076/04/PDF/G1707604.pdf?OpenElement. Quoted in McSherry and Maker, 2018
Hyde B, Bowles W, Pawar M (2015) ‘We’re still in there’ – consumer voices on mental health inpatient care: social work research highlighting lessons for recovery practice. Br J Soc Work 45(suppl_1):i62–i78
Ife J (2012) Human rights and social work: towards rights-based practice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
International Federation of Social Workers (2014) Global definition of social work. Available via International Federation of Social Workers. Accessed 17 Sept 2018. https://www.ifsw.org/what-is-social-work/global-definition-of-social-work/
Kisely S, Xiao J (2018) Cultural and linguistic diversity increases the likelihood of compulsory community treatment. Schizophr Res 197:104–108
Kisely SR, Campbell LA, O’Reilly R (2017) Compulsory community and involuntary outpatient treatment for people with severe mental disorders. Cochrane Database Syst Rev (3):542–543
Kokanović R, Brophy L, McSherry B, Flore J, Moeller-Saxone K, Herrman H (2018) Supported decision-making from the perspectives of mental health service users, family members supporting them and mental health practitioners. Aust N Z J Psychiatry 52(9):826–833
Light EM, Robertson MD, Boyce P et al (2017) How shortcomings in the mental health system affect the use of involuntary community treatment orders. Aust Health Rev 41(3):351–356
Maylea CH (2017) A rejection of involuntary treatment in mental health social work. Ethics Soc Welf 11(4):336–352
Maylea C, Jorgensen A, Matt S et al (2018) Consumers’ experiences of mental health advance statements. Laws 7(2):22
McSherry B (2008) Protecting the integrity of the person: developing limitations on involuntary treatment. Law Context 26:111
McSherry B, Maker Y (2018) International human rights and mental health: challenges for law and practice. J Law Med 25(2):315–319
McSherry B, Wilson K (2015) The concept of capacity in Australian mental health law reform: going in the wrong direction? Int J Law Psychiatry 40:60–69
Mfoafo-M’Carthy M (2014) Community treatment orders and the experiences of ethnic minority individuals diagnosed with serious mental illness in the Canadian mental health system. Int J Equity Health 13(1):69–79
Molodynski A, Rugkåsa J, Burns T (2010) Coercion and compulsion in community mental health care. Br Med Bull 95(1):105–119
Moss K, Wyder, M, Braddock V, Arroyo D, Kisely S (2019) Compulsory community treatment and ethnicity: findings from a culturally and linguistically diverse area of Queensland. Int J Law Psychiatry. (first online) 62:154–159
Nagra MK, Pillinger T, Prata-Ribeiro H et al (2016) Community Treatment Orders – a pause for thought. Asian J Psychiatr 24:1–4
Newton-Howes G, Ryan CJ (2017) The use of community treatment orders in competent patients is not justified. Br J Psychiatry 210:311–312
Nyttingnes O, Ruud T, Rugkåsa J (2016) ‘It’s unbelievably humiliating’ – patients’ expressions of negative effects of coercion in mental health care. Int J Law Psychiatry 49:147–153
Parker I (2014) Madness and justice. J Theor Philos Psychol 34(1):28–40
Perkins R, Repper J, Rinaldi M et al (2012) Recovery Colleges briefing paper. Centre for Mental Health, London
Ramon S (2006) Risk avoidance and risk taking in mental health social work. In: Sapouna L, Herrmann P (eds) Knowledge in mental health: reclaiming the social. Nova Science Publishers, Inc., New York, pp 39–56
Rivest MP, Moreau N (2014) Between emancipatory practice and disciplinary interventions: empowerment and contemporary social normativity. Br J Soc Work 45(6):1855–1870
Roberts G, Boardman J (2013) Understanding ‘recovery’. Adv Psychiatr Treat 19(6):400–409
Roper C (2018) Capacity does not reside in me. In: Spivakovsky C, Seear K, Carter A (eds) Critical perspectives on coercive interventions: law, medicine and society. Routledge, London, pp 97–108
Slade M, Adams N, O’Hagan M (2012) Recovery: past progress and future challenges. Int Rev Psychiatry 24(1):1–4
Stone K (2018) Approved mental health professionals and detention: an exploration of professional differences and similarities. Practice 31(2):83–96
Stratford A, Kusuma N, Goding M et al (2014) Introducing recovery-oriented practice in Indonesia: the Sukabumi project–an innovative mental health programme. Asia Pac J Soc Work Dev 24(1–2):71–81
Sykes MJ, Brabban A, Reilly J (2015) Balancing harms in support of recovery. J Ment Health 24(3):140–144
Szmukler G (2008) Treatment pressures, coercion and compulsion in mental health care. J Ment Health 17(3):229–231
Tew J, Ramon S, Slade M et al (2012) Social factors and recovery from mental health difficulties: a review of the evidence. Br J Soc Work 42:443–460
Thompson N (2015) Understanding social work: preparing for practice. Palgrave Macmillan, London
Thornicroft G, Henderson C (2016) Joint decision making and reduced need for compulsory psychiatric admission. JAMA Psychiat 73(7):647–648
Waddington L, McSherry B (2016) Exceptions and exclusions: the right to informed consent for medical treatment of people with psychosocial disabilities in Europe. Eur J Health Law 23(3):279–304
Wyder M, Bland R et al (2015) Therapeutic relationships and involuntary treatment orders: service users’ interactions with health-care professionals on the ward. Int J Ment Health Nurs 24(2):181–189
Wyder M, Bland R et al (2016) The importance of safety, agency and control during involuntary mental health admissions. J Ment Health 25(4):338–342
Young IM (1990) Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Zinkler M (2016) Germany without coercive treatment in psychiatry – a 15-month real world experience. Laws 5(1):15
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Brophy, L. (2020). Legal Provisions, Advocacy, and Empowerment. In: Ow, R., Poon, A. (eds) Mental Health and Social Work. Social Work. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6975-9_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6975-9_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-6974-2
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-6975-9
eBook Packages: Social SciencesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences