Mental Health Practitioners in Specialist Schools (Reference 131)
The Mental Health Practitioners in Specialist Schools (MHP) initiative provides funding to government specialist school campuses with secondary-aged enrolments (12 years+) to employ a suitably qualified Mental Health Practitioner (that is, a fully registered Mental Health Nurse, Occupational Therapist, Psychologist or Social Worker) for between 2 and 4 days a week.
Mental Health Practitioners provide direct counselling support to students, early intervention services and whole-school mental health and wellbeing promotion and prevention activities. They also coordinate supports for students with complex needs.
For further information on the MHP initiative, refer to Mental health practitioners in secondary and specialist in the department’s Mental health and wellbing .
Student Resource Package (SRP) funding is provided to cover the salary of an ongoing school-based Mental Health Practitioner. Participating specialist schools receive between a minimum of 0.4 FTE and a maximum of 0.8 FTE, depending on their secondary-aged student enrolments.
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 Regional Mental Health Coordinator (MHC). Further information and advice about suitable alternative uses for unused funding can be found on the MHP initiative Policy and Advisory Library Page or via Regional MHCs.
Please note, schools that participated in the Health Promoting Schools pilot with Melbourne University and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute will see a one-off increase in the cash component of their 2024 confirmed SRP payment. This increase covers the cost of CRT time-release for participating staff.
MHP initiative funding eligibility for schools with combined Primary/Secondary-aged enrolments
All participating specialist schools with secondary-aged enrolments receive funding for an ongoing MHP. For specialist schools with both primary and secondary-aged student enrolments, funding allocations will be determined based on secondary-aged (12+ years) enrolments only.
FTE allocations are fixed from the release of the Confirmed SRP (April 2023) for 2 years. At the conclusion of the 2-year period, FTE allocations will be reviewed and adjustments may be made.
Funding is allocated as credit and cash funding.
Special development campuses of mainstream schools are funded at school level.
Calculation
School FTE Allocation (Part 1) = FTE allocated as per below ranges:
- less than 100 students = 0.4 FTE
- greater than 100 to 250 students = 0.6 FTE
- 250+ students = 0.8 FTE
Funding calculation (Part 2) = School FTE allocation (rounded to one decimal) * Rate
Rate
Rate = Midpoint of an Education Support, Level 1 Range 4, position including school SRP on-costs
Reviewed 26 March 2024