Status: Delivered
What the Royal Commission said
The Royal Commission recommended a new incentive scheme to address mental health and wellbeing workforce supply needs in rural and regional Victoria.
The incentive scheme aims to build the workforce in rural and regional mental health and wellbeing services.
The Royal Commission found that workforce shortages are often more pronounced in regional and rural Victoria.
Some mental health and wellbeing services in these communities find it difficult to attract enough workers.
A new incentive scheme will help attract and retain workers in these locations.
What we’ve achieved
Regional Mental Health Workforce Incentives program
- We established the Regional Mental Health Workforce Incentives program to attract mental health workers to rural and regional Victoria, providing grants supporting more than 300 workers to relocate to rural/regional areas.
- The program has:
- Supported the attraction, recruitment, and retention of new workers to priority positions in state funded mental health and alcohol and other drug services in rural and regional Victoria
- Supported individuals and their dependents to move, settle and integrate into rural and regional Victorian communities
- Provided workforce relocation and incentive grants to help attract and retain workers from metropolitan areas, interstate, and overseas to rural and regional services across Victoria.
- Employed community navigators across the state to provide support to workers and their families relocating to regional communities.
- Together with other workforce initiatives, these efforts have strengthened the regional mental health workforce, which has grown by 25 per cent since 2021. This has helped to address critical service gaps across regional Victoria.
Updated