The National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health (or NWC) was established to assist professionals and organisations in the health, social and community sectors to support infant and child mental health and wellbeing. From the get-go we have focused on child, parent/adult and family services, both specialised and general, believing that infant and child social and emotional wellbeing is everyone’s business and knowing that together, we can all make a difference.
Lead by Emerging Minds since 2017, the work of the NWC is delivered in partnership with the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS), the Australian National University (ANU), the Parenting Research Centre (PRC) and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP).
The work of the NWC incorporates three key components:
- an online workforce gateway (this website) where you can access free training, practice guides, webinars, tools, information and news
- a national network of regionally-based Child Mental Health Workforce Consultants to support workforce development, systems change, information exchange and collaboration
- and a communication and knowledge translation strategy to support the diffusion of evidence into practice.
The NWC is one of two initiatives under the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Program. The other initiative is Be You, led by Beyond Blue, which focuses on schools and educators. Be You offers evidence-based online professional learning, tools and resources for educators in early learning services and schools. Together, these two initiatives aim to improve mental health outcomes for children and young people, commencing with the early years and going through to adolescence.
