The Mental Health Service Awards have been recognising excellence, innovation and best practice in mental health in Australia and New Zealand, for over 30 years. People from all parts of mental health services have been recognised for their vital contributions to addressing mental health issues across Australia and New Zealand, in the TheMHS Mental Health Service Awards. Fifteen Awards across eleven categories were presented by TheMHS Awards Ambassador, Julie Millard AM and TheMHS Awards founder Roger Gurr AM, to individuals and organisations at this week’s ‘Finding Common Ground’ Conference Awards Ceremony, in Canberra hosted by TheMHS Learning Network.

The winner for the 2024 Lived Experience Led Storytelling Award is Rebecca Moran and team from the Big Anxiety Research Centre for their amazing film I’d rather die than be in aged care.

‘Forgotten Australians’ are people who were placed in institutional care as children, where they were often subject to abuse and neglect. Experiences of powerlessness and dehumanising treatment in institutions as children continues to haunt them in older age as they are confronted by the possibility of needing to access aged care in institutions. This short film follows Forgotten Australians as they investigate the reality of ageing, their options for residential care and the fears that are igniting in this period of their lives. Participants in the film and the research that preceded it frequently told us ‘I’d rather die’ than face powerlessness, loss of freedom, and the potential for further abuse as they age.

This is an urgent social issue, as the thousands of children placed in out-of-home ‘care’ in the 1930s-1960s, including former Child Migrants, are now an ageing cohort. Aged care providers are rarely familiar with trauma informed practice, let alone the experiences of Forgotten Australians. This film is intended to raise awareness of this critical issue- which many Australians know little or nothing about. “We also hope that the film can be used as a free training resource for aged care staff, policy makers, and others who work with Forgotten Australians” said Rebecca Moran.

The authors thank the Ageing Futures Institute for funding this project. This film was researched and filmed on Whadjuk Nyoongah boodja. They extend their respects to the traditional owners of this land and acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded.

This film was published on 5th January 2024 with the duration of 17:41 by Rebecca Moran, Steph Vadja, Gail Kenning, Jill Bennett, and Volker Kuchelmeister.

About Rebecca Moran:

Bec Moran is a Perth-based Research Fellow at University of New South Wales (UNSW) Big Anxiety Research Centre, focused on lived experience engagement in research and public events, such as The Big Anxiety festival. Bec is also a PhD candidate at UNSW, studying the intersection of the personal and the political in politicised public testimony by survivors of child sexual abuse. As part of her research, Bec has developed a map for ‘dignifying practice’ which she believes is the next step on from trauma informed practice. Bec has also spent much of the past two decades as an educator, teaching about trauma informed practice and complex trauma in a wide variety of settings, from police academies to lecture theatres, using lived, practice, and academic expertise. Bec was part of the early days of the social movement that campaigned to bring lived experience engagement to the public and professional eye, and has fought for many years for lived experience expertise to be usefully and respectfully engaged with. She has published peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on this topic, and continues to explore the complexities of lived experience engagement in much of her work.