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About the workshop

This advanced workshop is designed for mental health practitioners looking to apply a community engagement lens to their practice, or those working in mental health settings looking to engage with diverse communities around mental health and wellbeing.

Participants will explore core concepts, practices and actions that underpin community engagement work in mental health settings and consider organisational factors that can help and hinder community engagement efforts.

This new workshop is designed around the Community Engagement with Purpose Resource Project (VTMH, 2023), which used a co-design process to develop a suite of resources to support practitioners and organisations engage with diverse communities around mental health. Participants attending the workshop will receive a hard copy of the Resource Booklet and Project Report and explore videos and other materials created through the project.

The workshop utilises a variety of facilitation modes, including small group work, grounded in a reflective practice approach.

An intentional and responsive approach to community engagement creates the opportunity for more purposeful and inclusive participation by diverse communities, to shape mental health service design and delivery. To learn more about the Community Engagement with Purpose Project, please visit https://vtmh.org.au/engaging-with-communities/

Learning outcomes

In this workshop, participants will

• Understand the notion of ‘community’
• Explore and reflect on the purpose of community engagement in mental health settings
• Recognize and critically reflect on the ways in which power operates in community engagement work
• Explore meaningful ways, and barriers, to building relationships with communities
• Recognise the varied nature of lived experience and importance of openness to diverse ways communities and individuals hold experiences
• Understand and apply a range of concepts, practices and actions that underpin community engagement work in mental health settings.

What are people saying about this workshop?

“Walking away with a beautifully expanded understanding of cultural engagement using caring holistic concepts and practices.“

“The grounding of the content in community and community-generated core concepts was excellent.”

Prerequisite learning

This workshop is designed to build on key concepts, principles and practices explored in VTMH’s Foundations of Culturally Responsive Practice for Mental Health Practitioners Workshop and/or the VTMH online module, Orientation to Cultural Responsiveness. We believe you will have a deeper learning experience if you’ve had the opportunity to work with concepts, principles and practices explored in the above prior to attending this workshop, as knowledge of these concepts and practices will be assumed.

If you have not completed the prerequisite learning, you are strongly encouraged to attend a VTMH Foundations of Culturally Responsive Practice for Mental Health Practitioners Workshop (click here) or complete the free, self-paced VTMH e-learning module, Orientation to Cultural Responsiveness (click here), prior to registering. 

Date, duration and delivery style

Date: Tuesday, 6 May 2025
Time: 9.30am – 4.00pm (with registration open from 9.15am for a 9.30am sharp start)
Venue: Multicultural Hub (Blue room) – 506 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000
Delivery style: This is a face to face (in person) workshop. Online attendance is unavailable.

Morning tea and lunch provided. Dietary requirements can be advised during the registration process.
Please bring a water bottle to help reduce our waste.

Target audience and eligibility

VTMH workshops are open to and provided free to staff working in Victoria’s state-funded mental health workforce. This includes public clinical and community mental health services, as well as state-funded mental health programs within community health and social services.

This workshop will interest staff working in a range of roles within these workforces, including but not limited to community rehabilitation and recovery workers, lived experience workers, mental health nursing, social work, occupational therapy, psychiatry, case management, community engagement roles, program leaders/project workers and administration roles. Where possible, we endeavor to reserve a small number of places for students on clinical placement.

Due to funding arrangements, workshops are currently unavailable to those working solely in private practice/NDIS providers. If you register and it is not clear you are part of the intended audience, we may contact you to confirm your eligibility. We thank you for your understanding.

If you are unsure if this workshop might be relevant to your role please feel free to contact us via vtmh.learning@svha.org.au.

How to register

Registrations are essential and close Monday, 21 April 2025.

Spaces in our workshops are limited to 25 spaces and provided free through state funding. We ask that you please use your work email address, and provide your manager’s email details, as part of the registration process. If you are registering as part of a team, we ask that you please limit registrations to 2-3 attendees per team, given the limited number of spaces available. Each individual attendee must register themselves.

Cancellation policy

We know circumstances change. If you register for a workshop and are unable to attend, please email us as soon as possible at vtmh.learning@svha.org.au to allow us to fill your place from our waiting lists. Whilst we do our very best to deliver our workshops as scheduled, unforeseen circumstances may require us to cancel or postpone events at short notice. 

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