National Mental Health Workforce Strategy 2022-2032
The National Mental Health Workforce Strategy 2022–2032 provides a vision and roadmap for building a sustainable workforce that is skilled, distributed and supported to deliver mental health treatment, care and support that meets current and future population needs. How does this align with the National Eating Disorders Strategy 2023-2033, which includes a section on workforce?
The National Mental Health Workforce Strategy 2022-2032 aims to ensure that the workforce can meet the needs of people across a range of experiences of mental ill health, whereas the National Eating Disorders Strategy 2023-2033 focuses on what is needed to equip the health, mental health, and education, social and community service workforces to meet the needs of people experiencing or at risk of eating disorders and those who care for them. However, the National Eating Disorders Strategy 2023-2033 is positioned within and has been informed by the broader context of mental health reform in Australia. As such, there are many synergies between these strategies.
Both strategies:
➡️ Classify the workforce as spanning promotion, prevention, early intervention, treatment, and recovery
➡️ Recognise the need for a whole of government and community response to and coordinated action in building the workforce
➡️Take a holistic approach to mental health, recognising the role of workforces across health, mental health, and education, social and community services
Both strategies include priority actions to:
➡️ Develop strategies to attract new workers and support and retain existing staff
➡️ Support the growth and development of the Lived Experience workforce, including training opportunities and increasing the number of Lived Experience roles within services
➡️ Upskill staff working in social and community services
➡️ Support the development of basic mental health skills in the broader health workforce and social and community services
➡️ Identify and promote training pathways and access to continued training, supervision, and professional development for all staff
➡️ Address barriers for professionals to work in mental health, including stigma
➡️ Develop transparent career pathways, including tertiary training and ongoing training opportunities
➡️Increase access to clinical supervision and placements
➡️ Use data and evidence to underpin workforce planning
NEDC continues to stay up-to-date with the mental health reform landscape, and to unpack how these reforms may align with or apply to an eating disorder context. As a sector collaboration, NEDC will share this information about broader mental health reforms and their connection to eating disorders, to support the sector to apply this information to their setting or area of expertise. We encourage you to read the Workforce section of the National Eating Disorders Strategy and consider how these actions might relate to your experiences and work.
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