Our Impact
The Mental Health Strategy plays a pivotal role across the Melbourne Children’s Campus, increasing awareness of the importance of early and preventive intervention in supporting the mental health of young people and their families.
Impact areas
As part of the Mental Health Strategy, we have an ambitious plan focused on six key areas for change. Our research and expertise in child and family mental health highlight that prioritising these areas will drive meaningful improvements in outcomes for children and families.
Advocacy is a key enabler to promote The Strategy’s internal and external priorities in mental health care and support for children, families and carers and staff. These priorities include the promotion of mental health as everyone’s business, improving equity and access, and prevention and early intervention. The strategy implementation team members responsible for the advocacy enabler are Anitha Thiraviarajah (Lead) and Kayla Elliott (Research assistant).
The objective is to design and implement an evidence-based model of family and carer (including sibling) mental health detection and support and embed this in standard care. Through research, engagement and education, this objective identifies the need to address whole child health and wellbeing through considering and supporting the environment around the child, including family and carer mental health concerns.
The objective is to ensure that all children, young people and their families, carers and support systems experience mental health care and treatment for common mental health disorders that is appropriate (evidence-based), inclusive and makes a difference at every encounter with Melbourne Children's Campus staff and clinicians.
A suite of resources will include:
- Evidence-based clinical practice guidelines on common childhood mental health disorders
- Associated needs based care and referral pathways including sub-sections for groups with increased vulnerabilities
- Measurement-based care framework embedded into usual care
Campus services adopt practices that reduce the potential for trauma or re-traumatisation, and promote a more collaborative and empowering care environment. "In trauma-informed services, trauma survivors are seen as unique individuals who have experienced extremely abnormal situations and have managed as best they could”. (Dr Cathy Kezelman)
Melbourne Children’s Campus has a strong history of training passionate health professionals who provide excellent care.
For many, mental health and wellbeing are part of the picture in holistic care they give. The Campus Mental Health Strategy’s aim to make mental health everyone’s business will be underpinned by education that will improve staff knowledge, skills and confidence to support infants, children, young people and their families and carers.
Welcome to Melbourne Children’s Campus, where we take pride in our rich history of pioneering world-class research to enhance the health and well-being of children and their caregivers.
At the Royal Children's Hospital, MCRI, and Melbourne University, we recognize the vital role of lived experience in shaping our research endeavours, particularly in the realm of children and young people's mental health. We actively engage with the perspectives of individuals, including families and other caregivers, who have directly navigated the challenges associated with mental health.
Lived experience offers invaluable insights into mental health's subjective and nuanced aspects, providing a unique viewpoint that complements traditional research methods. By incorporating the firsthand perspectives of those directly affected, our researchers gain a profound understanding of the hurdles faced by patients and their support networks.