Media Release
22 April 2024
The recently announced merger of ermha365 with The Disability Trust will open up a range of opportunities to support more people with complex mental health needs in many more areas of Australia while retaining a local community focus.
Both organisations have built industry-leading reputations for the work they do in complexity – The Disability Trust offers supports for people with disability with a wide range of services and programs while ermha365 specialises in providing support for challenging behaviours and psychosocial supports.
The merger helps fill a gap in the disability service providers market where there are not enough organisations with the skill, depth, quality and safeguards to work with people who present with complex needs. This includes high physical needs, complex and challenging behaviour and psychosocial disability needs participants.
With the combined resources of our two organisations, we have the expertise to support people with high physical or complex behavioural needs and all the co-occurring comorbidities that come with that. We now tick all those boxes.
When we combine the deep local knowledge that The Disability Trust possesses in many regions with ermha365’s best-in-sector mental health capability, we can tailor specialist supports for communities that are truly local and highly effective.
TDT is deeply embedded and well known in its local communities, it is considered a practice leader and now from this merger we can take all those great relationships and add ermha365’s extensive mental health expertise.
Together we want to grow and offer more mental health services in areas where The Disability Trust already is established in the local community throughout NSW, the ACT and South-East Queensland while also providing programs in new areas throughout the Eastern Seaboard – that’s the vision which is one of the main reasons why we’re coming together.
The ermha365 workforce in Victoria and Darwin includes psychologists, occupational therapists and mental health nurses, as well as specialist mental health workers and clinicians, who will complement the existing TDT staff members who hold similar roles.
We look forward to working with the Victorian, NSW, ACT and Queensland governments as we broaden our horizons.
Statistically, one in two people experience some form of mental illness in their lifetime and for one in four Australians, it will impact their ability to function.
It is important that people can have access to the support they need, when they need them and where they need them so that they can manage their mental health and wellbeing, and have a journey of recovery.
“For more than 40 years, ermha365 has specialised in supporting people through tailored disability and mental health services, including to those who find themselves at complex intersections with forensic, justice, acute clinical, homelessness and emergency services,” said ermha365 Chief Operations Officer Tara Laursen.
“In 2022-23, ermha365 supported 1950 people across Victoria and the Northern Territory through our programs.
“We are looking forward to the great opportunities ahead to provide more specialist and community mental health services to people and communities across Australia.”
Ange, a Melbourne woman in her 50s, is one such example of ermha365 lending a helping hand. She accessed ermha365’s assertive outreach service at a community centre last year. After going through a difficult family situation, she said the service had helped her in several ways, including talking, accessing other services in her community and understanding some of the complex and stressful legal processes that her family was involved in.
“ermha’s assertive outreach worker walked me through things I didn’t understand and she also helped me engage with the NDIS and start the process of application for one of my family members,” she said. “Things are looking good for me and my family now.”