Department of Health

Developing Victoria’s public mental health workforce

Key messages

  • The Centre for Mental Health Learning Victoria provides support for coordinating and communication about training and development for mental health workforce in Victoria.
  • There are many important providers of state-wide training that focus on a particular area of expertise to support the workforce in meeting the challenging and complex needs of consumers and their carers.
  • The Mental Health Professional Online Development (MHPOD) Learning Portal is a free, online professional development resource for Australia’s public mental health and public health workforces.
  • The platform has undergone a major upgrade in August 2023 to a national e-learning website to better support the mental health and public health workforces to gain important skills in mental health and wellbeing.

The Centre for Mental Health Learning Victoria

The Centre for Mental Health Learning (CMHL) is the central agency for public mental health workforce development, including lived-experience workforce, in Victoria.

Designed by training providers, mental health services and workers, the CMHL provides the information, tools, training, resources and expertise the sector needs to ensure access to quality, contemporary learning and development.

CMHL has been established to ensure skills and knowledge are shared widely, and mental health workers at every stage of their career have opportunities to grow their leadership capabilities. CMHL identifies and supports sharing of mental health learning and development resources across Victoria, allowing the sector to cut down on duplication and promote high quality resources within a culture of information sharing. Relevant training opportunities can be found in one, easy to find space on the CMHL website.

As CMHL expands activity around building mental health workforce capability, practice supports, knowledge translation and innovation will increase.

You can find all the latest listings of upcoming training opportunities on the CMHL websiteExternal Link .

For the latest news and updates visit the website, subscribe to the newsletter or follow CMHL on Twitter (@CMHLvic).

Statewide education and training providers

There are a number of providers that deliver a range of education and training opportunities to the specialist mental health workforce and others who have a role in responding to mental health issues.

These include:

Mental Health Professional Online Development

The Mental Health Professional Online Development (MHPOD) Learning Portal is a free, online professional development resource for Australia’s broad public mental health workforce.

The platform has undergone a major upgrade in August 2023 to better support the mental health and broader health workforce to gain important skills in mental health and wellbeing.

The platform caters to different learning styles, including self-directed learning, micro-learning, pathways and self-assessment tools to help people learn on the go. Topics are delivered in digestible sections, with each one taking approximately one hour.

Strategic Goal

Funded by all Australian jurisdictions and managed on their behalf by the Victorian Department of Health, MHPOD provides access to various learning and development resources through the MHPOD Website and the MHPOD Learning Portal.

Its goal is to build on the capacity of Australia’s mental health and interrelating workforce to continue delivering high-quality, evidence-based care to Australians and improve their health and wellbeing in a supportive, safe and collaborative environment.

All the content is evidence-based and developed by frontline subject matter experts working in acute and community-based mental health settings.

Target audience

MHPOD’s target audience is diverse with content developed to address clinical knowledge and skills relevant to particular occupations such as mental health nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, psychiatrists and psychologists working in Australia’s public mental health system.

In addition, content is also applicable to other workers whose role includes addressing the mental health needs of individuals such as community-based mental health workers, lived experience workforce, other allied health workers and Aboriginal Health Workers.

Accessing MHPOD

Access to the MHPOD Learning Portal is free through a self-registration process via the MHPOD Learning Portal login pageExternal Link .

Access to the MHPOD Website, which includes further information about the MHPOD Learning Portal can be found hereExternal Link .

Reviewed 28 September 2023

Health.vic

Contact details

Mental Health Professional Development

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