Australian mental health workforce: State and national policy imperatives and implications for workforce development

Australia's mental health sector is undergoing a period of intense reform, reflecting worldwide shifts in the way governments deliver mental health services. This will have major implications for the configuration of the mental health workforce now and into the future. Every Australian state and territory has new or amended mental health legislation, and since October 2015 five of the eight states and territories have launched new mental health strategic plans. Services are becoming more integrated and new partnerships are emerging, breaking down the old workforce silos. Amongst these developments, the mental health workforce, the people and disciplines who actually deliver mental health services, have been in a similar state of flux. The shift to competitive tendering has seen a significant rise in the community managed workforce, and peer workers, consumer and carer representatives. Deinstitutionalisation has seen a corresponding increase in the largely unpaid carer workforce. In the midst of this changing landscape, the policy agenda which guides the development of the mental health workforce is a sentinel factor. This presentation draws on a systematic descriptive policy review undertaken to synthetise the state of contemporary Australian mental health workforce policy, reviewing 7 national level policy documents and 10 state and territory policy documents. Key trends are identified and the implications for future of the mental health workforce development will be discussed.