The Mental Health Professionals Network (MHPN) is a private not-for-profit company created to manage funding packages from the Department of Health and Ageing.

The funding has been allocated for the delivery of interdisciplinary mental health workshops and for a website that supports continued collaboration amongst mental health professionals. Workshops will roll out across metropolitan, regional, rural and remote Australia in 2009 and 2010.

The workshops are targeted at primary mental health practitioners delivering services under the Better Access to psychiatrists, psychologists and general practitioners through the Medicare Benefits Schedule (Better Access) Initiative. The workshops seek to include nurses under the Mental Health Nurses Incentive Program (MHNIP). In addition, the workshops allow for the involvement of other individuals and groups that deliver mental health services such as aboriginal health workers.

Workshops and networks
 

The MHPN workshops lay the foundation for ongoing networks of mental health practitioners working in a local area.  Workshop participants will be encouraged to meet on a regular basis to network and to discuss local mental health care delivery issues and interdisciplinary mental health case studies.

The rollout of workshops and ongoing support for each network will be co-ordinated by teams dedicated to each state and territory. To assist the networks to become self-sustaining the MHPN will provide participants with access to a secure website with the facility for online forums and discussions.

MHPN aims

The overall purpose of MHPN is to support the development of sustainable, interdisciplinary collaboration in the local primary mental health sector.

More specifically, the workshops aim to assist mental health professionals to:

• recognise the specific skill offered by other mental health professions in their local area 
   
• identify local mental health referral pathways and resources
   
• identify opportunities for on-going professional development and mutual support

Member and partner organisations

MHPN has four member organisations:

• The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners

• the Australian Psychological Society

• The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists

• the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses.

MHPN also has three partner organisations:

• the Australian Association of Social Work
   
• OT Australia
   
• The Royal Australasian College of Physicians.
   

The MHPN will work in collaboration with its member  and partner organisations, other professional organisations, and existing networks to ensure that the MHPN project activities are far-reaching and accessible to all those interested in becoming a part of an MHPN local network.