The Royal Commission’s final report recommended a number of workforce reforms to ensure that our workforce has the right:
- size, diversity and distribution across the state
- support for their practice
- capabilities for the future.
These recommendations include developing this mental health and wellbeing workforce capability framework, which will apply to the whole of the workforce across roles, professions and settings.
The framework supplements current and future workforce initiatives underpinning system reforms that will build the new, responsive and integrated Victorian mental health and wellbeing system envisioned by the Royal Commission.
The practice principles in the framework are intended to support implementation of the principles of the new Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022, reflecting the recommendations of the Royal Commission. They focus on human rights, respectful, compassionate and collaborative practice, and understanding the diverse needs of individuals and their families and carers.
The framework sets out the collective knowledge, skills and ways of working our workforce needs to deliver quality care, support and treatment.
The framework puts consumers, carers and families at the centre. It also acknowledges the breadth of diverse expertise and experience across the mental health and wellbeing workforce. It recognises and values all forms of expertise equally.
This first version of the framework is the beginning of a conversation. It is a platform from which further reflection and innovation will occur at individual, team, service and system levels to inform future iterations.
We invite every Victorian mental health and wellbeing professional, team, service leader, educator, training organisation and other system stakeholders to embrace, use and build upon the framework. Together, we can build a mental health and wellbeing service system with a culture of collaboration, curiosity, continuous learning and care.
Translating the framework into practice and creating meaningful change rests in our collective hands. The more the workforce is supported to develop its capabilities in line with this new framework, the better equipped it will be to enact the principles and requirements of the new Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022.
As we continue this reform journey together, the framework represents a foundational tool to support a more reflective and collaborative approach in the way we think about capability development in the new, responsive and better integrated mental health and wellbeing system.
Professor Euan Wallace AM
Secretary, Department of Health
Reviewed 04 December 2023