Child and Youth Mental Health Service Redesign Demonstration Projects - 2008

The Victorian government is keen to improve the way mental health care is provided for children, adolescents and young adults. As part of a new Mental Health Reform Strategy, two ‘demonstration projects’ will be funded to showcase how a coalition of providers can plan and deliver an earlier, better integrated and more comprehensive service response for children and young people (aged 0-25 inclusive) who experience mental health problems; and their families. One of the demonstration projects will be located in a rural area; the other in a metropolitan one.

So far, we have developed the guidelines for these projects and held an information session for potential lead agencies. We are seeking submissions from interested consortia of services by 17 October 2008. In order to kick-start collaboration across program boundaries, we will only accept submissions from consortia that comprise, at a minimum, a child and adolescent mental health service, an adult mental health service, a PDRSS and a primary health entity. The documents posted below provide further detail about the demonstration projects and the requirements for submissions.

• Submission Brief: Child and Youth Mental Health Service Redesign Demonstration Projects - August 2008 (PDF file 271KB) - Submission Brief as a Word document (Doc file 293KB)

This document sets out the aims of the demonstration projects and describes their key parameters, including objectives, funding and governance. Part ‘D’ of the document provides a template for submissions.

Please note that the submission brief was amended on the 7 October 2008 to address an error. In Part C on page 21, Conditions applying to this submission process Section 7 General Conditions the following dot point has been removed as a requirement for submissions.

To be considered, a demonstration project submission will need to be:
" endorsed by the Regional Directors of DHS and DEECD and indicating their commitment to establish a Regional Partnership Group if the submission is successful. "

Please note that this is not a requirement for a demonstration project submission and should be disregarded.

• Child and Youth Mental Health Service Redesign Demonstration Projects: Information Session of 4 September 2008: presentation (PPT file 728KB)

The aim of this session was to provide potential lead agencies (child and adolescent mental health services and adult mental health services) with a briefing about the submission specifications posted above and an opportunity to seek clarification.

• Child and Youth Mental Health Service Redesign Demonstration Projects: Information Session of 4 September 2008: minutes (PDF file 22KB)

This document contains the write-up of the questions asked at the information session and the answers provided by DHS - updated 7 October 2008

• Additional Questions from Prospective Lead Agencies updated 14 Oct 2008 (PDF file 41KB)
  

This document contains the write-up of questions asked since the information session and of the answers provided by DHS.

This is the homepage for the demonstration projects, so bookmark this page and keep checking back for regular updates on this exciting initiative.

We expect that the learning of the demonstration projects will be of interest to consumers, carers and service providers beyond the two selected sites. Further information about the Victorian reforms can be found on the homepage of the Mental Health Reform Strategy.

The announcement of the successful demonstration project consortia and the service development grants will be delayed. There has been terrific interest in the projects and clearly we must ensure that the work that has been done in preparing submissions is considered carefully and the most appropriate sites chosen. We understand that this will slightly delay the commencement of project activity. We will advise of the outcome of the selection process as soon as we are able.