Despite the serious impacts of child mental health difficulties, children who experience or are at risk of experiencing mental health difficulties often go unrecognised, lack access to adequate assessment, and they and their families often don’t access appropriate support services.

In response to this, the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health, funded by the Department of Health and Aged Care, was launched in late 2017. The centre is led by Emerging Minds and was established in partnership with the Australian National University, the Parenting Research Centre, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and AIFS.  

The National Workforce Centre aims to build the capacity of organisations and professionals who work with children and families to identify, assess and support children (0 to 12 years) at risk of mental health difficulties. Further, the centre engages with practitioners and organisations in the health, social and community sectors to bring visibility to children’s social and emotional needs to: 

• enhance parenting practices
• support infant and child mental health
• reduce the effects of trauma and harm.

As part of AIFS’ work with the National Workforce Centre, the Child and Family Evidence team synthesise evidence and develop resources for practitioners on a range of child mental health topics. Our Child Family Community Australia (CFCA) information exchange also hosts a series of webinars focused on child mental health for child, family and community sector professionals over the coming months. 

View publications from the project on the Emerging Minds website.

View all webinars on the AIFS website.

Online training and resources

Promoting positive child mental health should be the responsibility of all health, society and community professionals, whether they work directly with children or not.

Through the National Workforce Centre, professionals and organisations have free access to:

• a national website providing online training, implementation and practice support tools and information, webinars, podcasts, events and the latest evidence and news about infant and child mental health. The website is being continually updated with new courses and content.
• implementation support where organisations can engage with the Centre’s Partnerships and Implementation team. This team can gauge readiness and help organisations develop action plans to enhance organisational practice and support positive mental health outcomes for infants and children

The National Workforce Centre’s free online training covers topics such as childhood trauma, supporting infant and toddler mental health and intervention programs for families where a parent has a mental illness. It ranges from short courses that take a few hours to complete to more in-depth training courses. 

View the training available on the Emerging Minds website.

Visit the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health for more information and resources and subscribe to the Emerging Minds newsletter to receive regular updates.