The Australian\u00a0Government has established a $5.15 million scholarship program to grow and upskill the mental health and suicide prevention workforce to ensure that all Australians have access to high quality, affordable, person centred mental health care when they need it.
\nThe Mental Health Nursing and Allied Health Scholarship Program was announced as part of the Morrison Government\u2019s record $2.3 billion investment in mental health and suicide prevention in the 2021\u201322 Budget to attract, train and retain key mental health professionals and to address workforce pressures.
\nThe Program will provide 278 scholarships to support mental health nurses and allied health practitioners including psychologists to enter the mental health workforce, in addition to upskilling existing health practitioners in the mental health sector.
\nMinister for Health and Aged Care, Greg Hunt, said the scholarships will allow health care professionals to complete mental health related tertiary, vocational and continued professional development courses and clinical placements in mental health settings
\n\u201cAcross Australia our mental health workforce has been stretched, particularly during the pandemic, and there are plenty of opportunities for health care workers to move into rewarding work in mental health,\u201d Minister Hunt said.
\n\u201cProviding opportunities for health care professionals to access appropriate training in mental health and suicide prevention will increase the numbers of skilled professionals to meet demand for services now and into the future,\u201d Minister Hunt said.
\nAssistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, David Coleman, said investing in mental health training for health care professionals will also promote mental health as a career option.
\n\u201cThe program will provide 126 postgraduate nursing scholarships for courses related to mental health and suicide prevention,\u201d Assistant Minister Coleman said.
\n\u201cIt will also support up to 152 allied health practitioners including psychologists working in mental health and suicide prevention for related tertiary, vocational and continuing professional development courses and clinical placements.\u201d
\nThe Program will also focus on rural and remote locations, with priority given to health care workers who live and\/or work in these rural areas (MM 3-7).
\nMinister for Regional Health, Dr David Gillespie, said the program aims to address mental health workforce pressure nationally, including those in rural and remote areas of Australia.
\n\u201cAccess to skilled mental health workers shouldn\u2019t be dependent on where you live, and upskilling health workers who are already living and working in rural and remote Australia is a great way to expand their skills and meet their communities\u2019 needs,\u201d Minister Gillespie said.
\n\u201cFor this reason, there will be a preference for applicants living or working in rural and remote areas.\u201d
\nAlongside the prioritisation for applicants from rural and remote regions, a minimum of five per cent of scholarships will be made available to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants as first priority. This will ensure vital services are available for all Australians and can be delivered in a culturally safe and appropriate way.
\nIndividuals can express their interest in applying for a place from November 2021 through the Australian College of Nursing. The scholarships will be supported from Semester 1, 2022<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Australian\u00a0Government has established a $5.15 million scholarship program to grow and upskill the mental health and suicide prevention workforce to ensure that all Australians have access to high quality, affordable, person centred mental health care when they need it. The Mental Health Nursing and Allied Health Scholarship Program was announced as part of the … Continue reading “$5.15 million in scholarships to grow Australia\u2019s mental health workforce”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}