Projects

QAMH is in partnership with Queensland Health to develop a Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Strategy. The purpose of the Strategy is to articulate the distinctive workforce issues unique to the sector, as opposed to the mental health system more broadly, and detail the specific actions that will be required to address them. Thank you to those who provided submissions on the content of the Issues Paper. Many of these comments have been incorporated into the final version.

The Community Mental Health Workforce Project identified a range of priority skill gaps and training needs that would assist and prepare the workforce to operate in the sector. QAMH collaborated with Workability Queensland and TAFE Queensland to develop a specific training package – this is now available for free via the TAFE Queensland learning platform.

The Peer Workforce Student Mentoring Program is a pilot project with Lived Experience Peer Mentors providing individual and group based mentoring support to students completing the Certificate IV in Mental Health Peer Work at TAFE QLD - Gold Coast and Mooloolaba Campuses.

The Queensland Mental Health Commission, working in partnership with QAMH is funding an analysis of the Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Sectors to understand how we can grow and strengthen the sector. A Project Reference Network including community mental health member organisations, Lived Experience advisors and other key stakeholders was recently established to support the project team.

Throughout the year QAMH has been meeting with our member organisations, mental health colleagues and other stakeholders including both state and federal ministers to explore the concepts presented in our Wellbeing First report. Recently we launched the Wellbeing Innovation Hub with our members to further strengthen sector excellence.

According to the Productivity Commission’s Mental Health Report, “suitable housing — that is secure, affordable, of reasonable quality and of enduring tenure — is a particularly important factor in preventing mental ill-health”. QAMH and Q Shelter are calling for coordinated action to increase investment in supported accommodation programs.