The first of the 13 workforce development projects funded through the Collaborative Centre’s SCALE (Sector Capability and Learning Expansion) initiative is available to Victorian mental health practitioners.
We know that services across the mental health and wellbeing sector are already developing great workforce initiatives, resources and ways of working. SCALE provides small grants to help services take this work beyond their own organisation and share it more broadly across the sector.
What's launched
Listening Beyond the System: Bicultural Voices on Mental Health, facilitated by cohealth, is a new podcast from the Victorian Bicultural Workers Network. Bicultural workers share their communities’ experiences of mental health, wellbeing and accessing support, helping mental health workers better understand the strengths, needs and perspectives of refugee and migrant communities and consider how services can work more effectively and safely alongside them.
The SCALE initiative has funded 10 episodes of this insightful program, with a new episode released each month.
What's on its way
Also launching is Project ECHO for the Lived and Living Experience Workforce, led by Goulburn Valley Health. This community of practice will connect people working in designated Lived and Living experience roles across consumer, carer, alcohol and other drugs, and harm reduction settings.
Based on the internationally recognised Project ECHO model developed at the University of New Mexico, the program uses an ‘all teach, all learn’ approach that brings people together to share expertise, practice examples and real-world challenges. Each session will combine a short presentation with participant-led practice examples, discussion and shared learning. 10 online sessions, featuring different presenters, will run from 2 September 2026 through to July 2027.
These are the first of the Collaborative Centre’s SCALE-funded projects to reach the sector, with more resources, learning opportunities and initiatives coming over the months ahead.
