Key messages
- Health services employing one or more graduates in any of the eligible allied health professions can apply for funding.
- Funding contributes to the cost of supervision and on-the-job training in the first year for allied health graduates.
- The aim of the postgraduate funding is to make sure that new allied health graduates make a positive transition into the public sector health workforce.
- The Postgraduate Medical Council of Victoria and the Department of Health & Human Services coordinate the recruitment process for medical radiation intern positions in Victoria.
Funding for allied health graduates
The Department of Health & Human Services provides graduate funding payments to health services to contribute to the cost of supervision and on-the-job training for allied health graduates in their first year of employment. Some allied health students undertaking professional practice placements are also supported through this stream.
The aim of the graduate funding stream is to make sure that new allied health graduates make a positive transition into the public sector health workforce and are encouraged to stay working within this sector.
The Allied Health Early Graduate Support Program provides funding to all health services employing early graduates (first year following graduation) in the following professions:
- social work
- clinical psychology
- occupational therapy
- speech pathology
- physiotherapy
- podiatry
- dietetics
- orthoptics
- optometry
- audiology
- orthotics and prosthetics
- exercise physiology.
Public health services that have employed one or more allied health graduates in any of the eligible professions can apply for funding support. Annual data submissions are due in January.
Please contact the department’s Allied Health Workforce team if you have any queries regarding this funding.
Training and Development Grant funding for Intern/Pre-registration positions
Funding for intern/pre-registration positions is available where industry-based learning is a core requirement and compulsory pre-requisite to registration or independent practice.
The Training and Development grant aims to align the supply of these trainees with service delivery need. Funding is not designed to serve as a salary subsidy, but is intended to compensate health services for the costs incurred in training graduates who are not yet fully competent. It is recognised that health services will continue to gain benefit from taking interns/pre-registrants as they build their workplace competencies throughout their placement. The Department of Health and Human Services is therefore not committed to fully funding positions for all interns produced by universities and adjusts the number of funded positions annually, subject to workforce demand.
The Department of Health and Human Services funds intern/pre-registration positions for:
- Medical Radiation Science (Radiation Therapy, Radiography, Nuclear Medicine)
- Hospital Pharmacy
- Medical Laboratory Science
- Medical Physics and Biophysics
Reviewed 31 March 2016