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Intellectual disability health and mental health information
3DN’s Intellectual Disability Health Education
Description: Online learning to improve the knowledge, skills and confidence of health professionals, disability professionals and carers and family members who support people with intellectual disability.
Type: e-Learning
Intellectual Disability Health Data Portal
Description: Portal that provides data and information on mental health service use by people with intellectual disability in each Local Health District and Specialty Health Network. The Portal can only be accessed by NSW Health staff who are nominated by their Chief Executive.
Type: Website
Intellectual Disability Core Competency Framework Manual and Toolkit
Description: A manual that describes the specific skills and attributes required by mental health professionals for the provision of quality services to people with intellectual disability. The accompanying toolkit provides practical information, assessment tools and links to resources to assist in the development of the core attributes.
Type: Manuals and toolkits
Description: My Lived iD is a hub for people with intellectual disability, their families, carers, and health care professionals. It was created by the Centre for Developmental Disability Health It has information and resources that aim to support the mental health and wellbeing of people with intellectual disability. There is a searchable directory of mental health services Australia wide. The website also has links to websites and resources covering a variety of topics including employment and housing, and information on training courses.
Type: Directory and website
Resources for health professionals managing patients with intellectual disability
Description: Resources for health professionals to support the delivery of better health care to people with intellectual disability. Includes a detailed Resources for Health Practitioners guide with information on reasonable adjustments and communication, links to clinical resources, care coordination and NDIS resources.
Type: Resources guide and templates.
Description: Health care for people who need extra support: A health literacy guide to support the health of people with a cognitive impairment or intellectual disability.
Type: Guide
Description: A framework that guides medical professionals through cardiometabolic risk screening for people with intellectual disability. It also provides intervention strategies tailored to people with intellectual disability.
Type: Framework
Health Information Factsheets by CID
Description: Series of factsheets about people with intellectual disability and relevant health information.
Type: Factsheets
My Health Learning (Health Education and Training Institute – HETI)
Description: NSW Health's online learning system that provides self-managed online learning to NSW Health staff.
Type: e-Learning
Society for the Study of Behavioural Phenotypes Syndrome Sheets
Description: Series of syndrome sheets with information on genetic, cognitive and behavioural aspects of different syndromes that can cause intellectual disability.
Type: Factsheets
Agency for Clinical Innovation – Resources
Description: A summary of intellectual disability health network resources and toolkits.
Type: Website
Services and organisations
Specialist intellectual disability services
Specialist intellectual disability services list
Description: List of specialist mental health and health services for people with intellectual disability living in NSW.
Type: Services list
Statewide Intellectual Disability Mental Health Hubs
Description: Information about the two statewide tertiary intellectual disability mental health services in NSW.
Type: Information about tertiary services
Statewide Intellectual Disability Mental Health Outreach Service (SIDMHOS)
Description: Tertiary intellectual disability mental health service for adults.
Type: Tertiary service
Sydney Children's Hospital Network Mental Health and Intellectual Disability Hub
Description: Tertiary intellectual disability mental health service for children and adolescents.
Type: Tertiary service
Description: GROW is a Central and Eastern Sydney Primary Health Network service that aims to enhance the role of primary care providers to meet the complex health needs of people with intellectual disability.
Type: Service navigation and training
Disability supports
National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)
Description: Information about the NDIS and NDIS plans.
Type: Website
Description: A directory of registered NDIS providers.
Type: Directory
NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission
Description: An independent agency established to improve the quality and safety of NDIS supports and services. Complaints about NDIS supports and services can be made to the Commission.
Type: Website
Description: National Disability Services is Australia's peak body for non-government disability service organisations.
Type: Website
Organisations and departments
Council for Intellectual Disability
Description: A disability rights organisation that is led by people with intellectual disability. The website provides information, resources and tools around a range of issues that are relevant to people with intellectual disability.
Type: Website
Description: 3DN is part of the Faculty of Medicine & Health at UNSW Sydney. They champion the right of people with intellectual or developmental disability to the same level of health and mental health as the rest of the population. Their website includes resources for professionals and information on current research and projects.
Type: Website
Description: The Centre for Disability Studies is a non-profit organisation, affiliated with the Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney. They focus on designing and developing research, teaching and workforce development initiatives, and clinical practice that informs disability policy and practice.
Type: Website
Agency for Clinical Innovation
Description: The lead agency in clinical care in NSW. The Agency for Clinical Innovation bring patients, clinicians and managers together to support the design and implementation of innovation in health care.
Type: Website
Centre for Developmental Disability Health
Description: The Centre for Developmental Disability Health are a multidisciplinary team who work across a range of education, clinical, research and advocacy activities to improve the health of people with intellectual and associated developmental disabilities. They are based in Victoria, but have valuable resources for professionals practicing elsewhere.
Type: Website
Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability
Description: The Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability (QCIDD) supports the health care of people with intellectual disability through research, teaching and advocacy. While based in Queensland, they have valuable resources for professionals practicing elsewhere.
Type: Website
People with Disability Australia
Description: People with Disability Australia is a national disability rights, advocacy and representative organisation that is made up of, led and governed by people with disability.
Type: Website
Communication and accessible information
Communication resources
Your Guide to Communicating with People with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities
Description: This guide from Mencap provides information about communication and how to be a better communicator. It also contains tips on how to communicate with a person with intellectual disability.
Type: Guide
Communication Tips & Strategies: Total Communication
Description: A video from the Autism Association of Western Australia exploring different ways a person can communicate and how to support them using the total communication approach.
Type: Video
How Can I Communicate Better with People with Learning Disabilities
Description: A video by CHANGE UK on how to better communicate with people with intellectual disability.
Type: Video
Description: Talking Mats is a research-based tool to help people think about a topic or issue and communicate their opinions, ideas and preferences more effectively.
Type: Communication Tool
Description: Information about Key Word Sign, which is the use of manual signs and natural gestures to support communication.
Type: Communication Tool
Description: Speakbook is a communication tool for people who cannot speak or use their hands. With Speakbook, individuals can communicate using only their eyes.
Type: Communication Tool
Description: A language resources site for Australian Sign Language (Auslan).
Type: Communication Tool
Description: The Hospital Communication Book supports people to communicate with images while they are in hospital.
Type: Communication Tool
Description: The Picture Communication Tool has sets of drawings that can be used with people who use less verbal communication. The illustrations are free to download and are ready for printing.
Type: Communication Tool
Description: My Communication Passport provides a communication passport template and examples.
Type: Communication Tool
Accessible information
Making Mental Health Information Accessible for People with Intellectual Disability – A Toolkit
Description: A toolkit, created by 3DN, on how to make information accessible to people with intellectual disability.
Type: Toolkit
Inclusion Australia's resources section
Description: Easy Read information, guides and handbooks for people with intellectual disability and their families.
Type: Website- resources
Council for Intellectual Disability's Inclusion Services
Description: The Council for Intellectual Disability provides inclusion services to organisations who want to become more inclusive of people with intellectual disability. The services include Easy Read translations and training, product and service testing, capacity building, inclusion audits and how to improve inclusive governance.
Type :Inclusion service
Australian Government Style Manual – Easy Read
Description: Information about how to create Easy Read materials.
Type: Website
NSW Government – Write in Plain English
Description: Information about how to write content in plain English.
Type: Website
Disability Advocacy Resource Unit – Accessible Online Meetings
Description: Tips on how to ensure online meetings are accessible to all attendees.
Type: Website
Tools
Assessment tools
Assessment tools suitable for use with people with intellectual disability
Description: A list of mental health assessment and psychometric tests that are suitable for use with people with intellectual disability.
Type: List
The Comprehensive Health Assessment Program (CHAP)
Description: A tool for GPs and doctors that is designed to prompt a comprehensive health assessment for people with intellectual disability.
Type: Health assessment tool
Health passports
Description: People with intellectual disability can use this passport to record information about their mental health to share with health professionals.
Type: Easy Read mental health passport
Admission2Discharge (A2D) Together Folder
Description: A folder that brings together information about a person's health, medications, and likes and dislikes to make the person's time at the hospital less stressful.
Type: Health passport
Description: A folder from the Council for Intellectual Disability designed to improve communication between a person with intellectual disability and their health care providers. It brings together information about the person's preferred communication methods, personal routines and moods.
Type: Health passport
Monitoring tools
Description: A resource from 3DN that can be used by carers to record the wellbeing of a person with intellectual disability and any changes that occur.
Type: Monitoring tool
Planning tools and templates
Description: This template can be used by professionals to assist with planning how services/agencies will collaborate to provide services and support to a person with intellectual disability.
Type: Planning template
Description: This discharge planning tool outlines key considerations and actions to take before a person with intellectual disability is discharged from hospital after a mental health admission.
Type: Planning tool
Description: This template provides a guide to developing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) outlining how services/agencies can work together to provide collaborative mental health care to people with intellectual disability.
Type: Memorandum of Understanding template
Development of localised intellectual disability mental health care pathways – A planning tool
Description: This tool aims to assist mental health services in the planning of a localised intellectual disability mental health care pathway within their service or hospital.
Type: Planning tool
Resolving clinical stalemates: Key actions planning templates
Team uncertainty or disagreement across the care pathway
A service does not accept a person because of their diagnosis or complexity of treatment plan
The person or their support networks do not agree with the diagnosis or care plan
The person keeps presenting to the emergency department
Multidisciplinary team is not working together
The person does not have the right support services to manage their recovery
Support networks cannot appropriately monitor or support treatment
Description: These templates help guide clinicians to reflect on clinical stalemates, consider the contributing factors, and develop a plan to resolve the stalemate.
Type: Template tools
Supported decision-making, capacity, and guardianship
NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT)'s Guardianship Division
Description: Information about how the Guardianship Division makes decisions about people who have a decision-making disability.
Type: Website
Description: Factsheet explaining who is a 'person responsible' and their role in providing consent to medical treatment for people who are not capable of consenting to their own treatment.
Type: Factsheet
Description: Information about The Public Guardian, what they do and when they can be appointed.
Type: Website
Description: The Guardianship Act governs the appointment of guardians for adults with a decision-making disability.
Type: Legislation
CID's Supported Decision-Making Hub
Description: Resources from the Council for Intellectual Disability on supported decision-making including video stories.
Type: Website- resources
NSW Trustee & Guardian – Supported Decision-Making and Capacity
Description: Information about what supported decision-making is and what it means to lack capacity to make decisions.
Type: Website
Description: A toolkit that aims to help in correctly identifying whether an individual has the capacity to make a decision.
Type: Toolkit
Treatment and support
Guidelines
Health Care in People with Intellectual Disability: Guidelines for General Practitioners
Description: Guidelines from the Centre for Developmental Disability Studies designed to support General Practitioners to provide comprehensive health care to people with intellectual disability.
Type: Intellectual disability health guidelines
Description: The Clinical Guideline from the Centre for Developmental Disability Health provides information to health professionals providing care to adults with intellectual disability and/or autism spectrum disorders.
Type: Developmental disability health guidelines
Description: A subscription website that provides developmental disability guidelines, including managing psychiatric disorders in people with developmental disability.
Type: Developmental disability mental health guidelines
Description: The guideline covers preventing, assessing and managing mental health problems in people with intellectual disability in all settings (including health, social care, education and forensic and criminal justice).
Type: Intellectual disability mental health guidelines
Description: The guideline covers interventions and support for children, young people and adults with intellectual disability and behaviour that challenges.
Type: Intellectual disability behaviour guidelines
NICE Guidelines – Care and Support of People Growing Older with Learning Disabilities
Description: The guideline covers care and support for adults with intellectual disability as they grow older. It covers identifying changing needs, planning for the future, and delivering services including health, social care and housing.
Type: Intellectual disability older adult guidelines
Dementia in People with Intellectual Disability: Guidelines for Australian GPs
Description: 3DN’S guidelines for Australian GPs regarding dementia in people with intellectual disability, produced by the Successful Ageing in Intellectual Disability (SAge-ID) Study.
Type: Intellectual disability older adult guidelines
NDIS Commission Practice Alerts
Description: Practice Alerts are short research summaries that provide information on best-practice, safe and quality service delivery to people with disability, including polypharmacy.
Type: Guidelines
Treatment and management
Responsible Psychotropic Prescribing to People with an Intellectual Disability Podcasts
Description: Series of podcasts aimed at educating health professionals on safe and effective prescribing practices for the treatment of mental disorders in people with intellectual disability.
Type: Podcasts
Description: STOMP stands for ‘stopping over medication of people with a learning disability, autism or both with psychotropic medicines. The STOMP network was established in the UK. STOMPOZ is the first Australian network to be established.
Type: Network
healthdirect – Home Medicines Review
Description: Information about the Home Medicines Review, which is conducted by an accredited pharmacist who will assess whether a person is taking their medications correctly.
Type: Website
Description: An Easy Read factsheet on how people with intellectual disability can arrange for a Home Medicines Review.
Type: Easy Read factsheet
Introduction to Inpatient Mental Health Services
Description: A series of Easy Read information sheets from 3DN for people receiving care in inpatient mental health services. The resource is provided as a template that can be modified and built upon to meet the individual needs of mental health services.
Type: Easy Read Factsheets
Trauma-Informed care
NSW Health – What is Trauma-Informed Care?
Description: Information on trauma-informed care and its core principles.
Type: Website
Trauma-Informed Care and Practice Organisational Toolkit
Description: A resource for managers on how to develop a trauma-informed service and practice culture.
Type: Toolkit
The Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists – Trauma-Informed Practice
Description: Position statement from the College on the importance of trauma-informed practice for psychiatrists.
Type: Policy
Taking Time – A Trauma-Informed Framework for Supporting People with Intellectual Disability
Description: A framework developed to guide service providers who support people with intellectual disability.
Type: Framework
Behaviour support
Description: Information for providers around understanding behaviour support and restrictive practices.
Type: Website
NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission – Regulated Restrictive Practices Guide
Description: The guide explains what a restrictive practice is and sets out information on the five types of regulated restrictive practices.
Type: Guide
NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission – The Positive Behaviour Support Capability Framework
Description: The framework aims to strengthen the safeguards for people receiving behaviour support and to demonstrate a commitment to the reduction and elimination of restrictive practices.
Type: Framework
Description: Report and other documents related to the Royal Commissions' public hearing on use of psychotropic medication to address behaviours of concern.
Type: Report
Discharge and transitions
Description: This discharge planning tool outlines key considerations and actions to take before a person with intellectual disability is discharged from hospital after a mental health admission.
Type: Planning tool
Description: Report by the Summer Foundation on hospital discharge planning.
Type: Report
Discharges from Hospital – Case Studies of People with Intellectual Disability
Description: A summary of findings from case studies of people with intellectual disability who have been discharged from hospital.
Type: Report
Description: Position statement from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians on the transition of young people to adult services.
Type: Policy
Policy, frameworks, and reports
United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD)
Description: An international human rights treaty intended to protect the rights and dignity of people with disability.
Type: Policy
The Guide – Accessible Mental Health Services for People with an Intellectual Disability
Description: A national framework of understanding and action for frontline mental health service providers with respect to people with intellectual disability.
Type: Framework
National Roundtable on the Mental Health of People with Intellectual Disability Communiqué 2018
Description: A series of practical recommendations arising from the National Roundtable on the Mental Health of People with Intellectual Disability 2018.
Type: Communiqué
National Roadmap for Improving the Health of People with Intellectual Disability
Description: The roadmap outlines how we can create a health system that improves the health of people with intellectual disability and addresses the serious health inequalities faced by this group.
Type: Roadmap
NSW Health - Responding to Needs of People with Disability During Hospitalisation
Description: This policy directive sets out guiding principles for responding to needs of people with intellectual disability including, inclusion, person-centred services, accessibility, communication, and reasonable adjustment.
Type: Policy
Australia's Disability Strategy 2021-2031
Description: A national framework that sets out a plan for continuing to improve the lives of people with disability in Australia.
Type: Framework
Fifth National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan
Description: The Plan commits to a nationally agreed set of priority areas that are designed to achieve an integrated mental health system.
Type: Policy
Living Well: A Strategic Plan for Mental Health in NSW 2014-2024
Description: The Plan sets out actions and future directions for reform of the mental health system in NSW.
Type: Policy
National Preventative Health Strategy 2021-2030
Description: The Strategy provides the overarching, long-term approach to prevention in Australia and identifies areas of focus between 2021-2030.
Type: Policy
NSW Health – Integrated Prevention and Response to Violence, Abuse and Neglect Framework
Description: A framework that outlines the vision, guiding principles, objectives and strategic priorities to strengthen NSW Health's response to violence, abuse and neglect.
Type: Framework
Disability Royal Commission Interim Report
Description: Interim report released by the Disability Royal Commission detailing its findings from the first 15 months of the Royal Commission.
Type: Report
Advocacy
Description: Free advocacy service that is available across NSW. They are available for general legal help and to provide support throughout criminal proceedings.
Type: Advocacy service
Disability Abuse and Neglect Hotline
Description: A free and confidential service for reporting abuse and neglect of people with disability. You can call them on 1800 880 052. It is not a crisis service.
Type: Phone support service
Self-care resources
Black Dog Institute's Self-Care and Self-Help Resources for Health Professionals
Description: A collection of resources, evidence-based tools and advice for Australian health care workers
Type: Website
Independence Australia – Carers and Disability Support Workers
Description: A collection of resources, evidence-based tools and advice for Australian health care workers.
Type: Website
Description: Information about self-talk, how it can affect mental health and tips to improve positive self-talk.
Type: Website
Description: Information about self-talk and why it should be practiced.
Type: Website
Self-Care Exercises and Activities
Description: Examples of self-care exercises and activities.
Type: Website
Black Dog Institute – Mindfulness in Everyday Life
Description: Factsheet about mindfulness, how it can help and examples of mindfulness techniques.
Type: Factsheet
ReachOut – Developing a Self-Care Plan
Description: Information about self-care plans and tips on how to develop one.
Type: Website
Description: A mental health tool by the Black Dog Institute that can help you identify unhelpful thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, and learn strategies to deal with them. It is for people with depression, anxiety or stress symptoms in the mild to moderate range.
Type: Digital tool
Description: A free smartphone app by the Black Dog Institute designed to build resilience and wellbeing. It is designed with a male audience in mind but is suitable for all adults.
Type: Digital tool
Resources for diverse groups
See the Key resources sections on each page for diverse groups.
Culturally and linguistically diverse people