Please note; the VMHILN ended in November 2022.
The Victorian Mental Health Interprofessional Leadership Network (the Network) now sits under the governance of the CMHL. The Network was a program that began in 2014 as a way of developing leadership within the Victorian public mental health sector to help lead changes for the implementation of the Mental Health Act and to lead changes for services to be more recovery focused.
The project was statewide and was led by Western Learning and Development Cluster. Every service in the state was invited to participate by nominating multi-disciplinary teams of four (lived experience, medical, nursing and allied health) to attend five days of leadership training and to deliver a recovery focused project in their area mental health service.
The Network went on to become a community of practice of interprofessional leaders in clinical mental health. The Network is ongoing with new members coming on board via a one day induction program. The Network’s vision is to is to be a thriving, influential and highly valued Network that actively leads change for recovery in local mental health services and broader policy reform to improve the experiences of all those who utilise or work within mental health services.
With governance moving to the CMHL it means better statewide connection and the opportunity to expand the Leadership Network positions (Project Manager and Consumer Project Coordinator) into roles with a broader approach to leadership development.
The Network usually meets bi-monthly at face to face meetings to share ideas, knowledge and resources. During COVID-19 we have moved to monthly online meetings. We pride ourselves on our networking capacity and continual focus on developing leadership and interprofessional collaboration. The Network has been involved in a number of projects. Currently we are leading the re-write of the Office of the Chief Psychiatrist (OCP) Sexual Safety Guideline. The Network are using co-design methodology for this process. This will be the third OCP guideline re-write that the Network has lead. The Network also lead a project on cross sector collaboration between AOD and MH. The result was a co-designed, dual diagnosis workshop for the lived experience workforce for the mental health and AOD sectors.
During COVID-19 the Network has produced videos about how our members are leading during times of change and uncertainty.
If you are unsure who the members in your area are contact
Henrique.vandunem2@mh.org.au or beth.dunlop@cmhl.org.au
For more information about the Network check out www.vmhiln.org.au
26 May 2020
