The Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System recommended regional approaches to mental health and wellbeing services, moving away from centralised decision making towards more localised approaches with the aim of ensuring service responses are tailored to local needs.
Eight Interim Regional Bodies (IRBs) were established in March 2022.
The three metropolitan IRBs are:
- North East Metro
- South East Metro
- Western Metro
The five regional IRBs are:
- Barwon South West
- Gippsland
- Grampians
- Hume
- Loddon Mallee
The IRBs advise the Department of Health on the mental health and wellbeing needs for their region, with the key roles of:
- Building trusted relationships with service providers and establishing strong community participation processes.
- Developing a clear understanding of the communities across the region and what they see as the key needs and opportunities.
- Providing advice to government on issues and opportunities in their region.
Membership of the IRBs reflect the rich diversity of each region, bringing a range of expertise and experience. Each IRB includes members who identify with a personal lived and living experience of mental illness or psychological distress and/or a lived and living experience as a family member or carer.
Mental Health and Wellbeing regions
Eight preliminary regions have been used to establish the IRBs. The preliminary regions are for planning and governance purposes – they are not catchments that will restrict access to services. These regions are subject to change.
Region map
* Where part local government areas are included in a region the whole local government area population is included.
* Population data is sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2021 reporting.
Updated