The Centre united cross-sector perspectives and community and lived experience voices to design a roadmap for a child mental health and wellbeing prevention system in Victoria.

With growing recognition of the importance of mental health promotion in Victoria and a National Children’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy in place, the Centre hosted a roundtable to advance efforts to develop a prevention and early intervention system for children’s mental health and wellbeing.

On Friday 12 May, over 60 people from health, education, service delivery, early childhood education, research and lived and living experience, across both state and national organisations, came together to identify priorities to truly realise a prevention system. Work is underway to produce a paper outlining the recommendations identified on the day.  We take this opportunity to share the following priorities:

• children’s wellbeing is enshrined in everything we do
• build the capacity to focus on social and commercial determinants of health
• build a workforce that is skilled in understanding social determinants of health and equipped to respond
• develop new funding models that enable us to respond to the needs of children and families as they emerge
• enhance child mental health and wellbeing literacy of children and families as well as service providers.

We’re grateful to those who attended the event and look forward sharing ongoing opportunities to progress the outcomes of the roundtable.

Register your interest here to receive the outcomes of the roundtable

The Centre acknowledges Roz Zalewski OAM and Jeremy Ruskin KC whose generous support enabled us to convene the roundtable.  We also acknowledge the sponsorship of the Melbourne Children’s Campus Mental Health Strategy.