Department of Health

Mental health promotion in Victoria

Key messages

  • Victoria has a strong, integrated system of mental health promotion aiming to promote mental health and provide individuals with the skills and capacities to optimise their wellbeing.

Victoria has a strong, integrated program of mental health promotion, which provides resources and drives priority activities across the multiple departments of government concerned with social development and community wellbeing.

These activities aim to foster social environments that promote mental health and provide individuals with the skills and capacity to optimise their wellbeing – be it through improvements in their workplaces, better access to education and healthcare, or greater participation in community activities.

Victorian public health and wellbeing plan 2019-2023

Improving mental wellbeing is one of the priorities included in the Victorian public health and wellbeing plan 2019-2023. The plan identifies what we want to achieve to improve mental health in Victoria:

  • reduction in the prevalence of mental illness, and increased resilience amongst Victorian individuals, families and communities
  • reductions in the gap in social and emotional wellbeing for at-risk groups, including Aboriginal Victorians, with an emphasis on loneliness and increasing social connectedness
  • reductions in the occurrence of suicide deaths, suicidal ideation and suicidal attempt, and the gap between the suicide rates for vulnerable groups and the general population.

National policy context

Victoria provides specialist mental health services and associated psychosocial support within a national mental health policy framework. Major national plans and initiatives since the release of the first National Mental Health Policy in 1992 include:

Reviewed 03 March 2022

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