Hi @chibam 
I am involved with a well known Victorian advocacy organisation who made submissions to Vic gov for the JIT report. I provided personal information/evidence for it. I'm probably not allowed to mention the name of the organisation here for "security or confidentiality"  reasons. 

I know the CEO of that organisation reasonably well and in my opinion he is a decent guy but admits that he and his organisation is highly compromised. In my opinion the state government departments of at least Vic, NSW and QLD are so overrun with cronyism that there seems to be very little chance of any significant reform taking place at state level in the near future. I don't have enough information to comment on other states.

That is why we are attempting to work at federal level where there seems to be much more openness to reform particularly from the current government.  I believe there was a lot less chance of achieving anything with the previous conservative federal government. Independents and minor parties like the Green's may also be a possibility but we haven't attempted to go down that path yet. We're just thinking about it. I have an older guy as my right hand man. He has dabbled in politics and at one stage stood for federal parliament. He has a schizophrenic adult son hence his interest and motivation.
The idea behind promoting Soteria Houses is that it offers a way to work around the existing state system with a community operated, federally financed system for  young people with serious (psychotic) mental health problems. The Soteria concept has been around for about 50 years and has proven itself to be effective in a number of countries. By itself it won't solve the underlying problem which is a global one and in my opinion a deep seated cultural one but it is an attempt to get a toe in the door with a  paradigm change. Changing the overall system will probably take a long time. We can only do our best.

Our message is :- You don't have to be a psychiatrist or psychologist to realise that providing an already badly traumatised person with a safe, supportive, kind and understanding environment has to have a better long term outcome than physical restraint, violence, and involuntary drugging.

The Soteria system allows for the use of medication but only for those who want it and in practice appears to reduce the use of medication by about 80%.

Regards

Willy