Mental Health Practitioners (Reference 119)
The Mental Health Practitioners (MHP) initiative provides funding to government school campuses with secondary enrolments to employ a mental health practitioner (mental health nurse, occupational therapist, psychologist or social worker) for between one and five days a week.
Mental health practitioners provide direct counselling support to students and other early intervention and whole-school health promotion activities, as well as coordinating support for students with complex needs.
For further information on the MHP initiative, refer to Mental health practitioners in secondary in the department’s Mental health and wellbeing .
Student Resource Package (SRP) funding is provided to cover the salary of an ongoing school-based mental health practitioner. All secondary school campuses will receive an allocation between a minimum of 0.2 FTE and a maximum of 1.0 FTE, depending on the number of their secondary student enrolments.
FTE allocations will be fixed from the release of the Confirmed SRP (March 2023) for 2 years. At the conclusion of the 2-year period, FTE allocations will be reviewed and adjustments may be made.
This funding is provided for the Mental Health Practitioners initiative only and allocated funding must be spent for this purpose. Prior to spending any accrued unused funding, schools must engage with their area-based mental health coordinator and refer to the MHP initiative School Implementation Guide for guidance.
Eligibility
Funding is provided to Secondary and Primary/Secondary Combined campuses with secondary enrolments. Funding is allocated as credit and cash funding.
Calculation
Campus FTE allocation (Part 1) = Secondary enrolments × 0.0008119
Funding calculation (Part 2) = Campus FTE allocation (rounded to 1 decimal) × Rate
Rate
Rate = Midpoint of an Education Support, Level 1 Range 1 to 6, position including school SRP on costs
Reviewed 02 January 2023