Growing the Peer Workforce

This grant opportunity supports action to grow the mental health and suicide prevention peer workforce by supporting 500 training placements for lived experience (peer) worker students.

The current Australian Qualifications Framework qualification available to peer workers is the Certificate IV in Mental Health Peer Work, which must be delivered and assessed through Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) such as TAFEs. To achieve this qualification, students must complete at least 80 hours of work, typically undertaken through a placement.

Multiple challenges have been identified for students to complete these placements, including a shortage of quality placement opportunities and adequately trained staff to supervise. This grant opportunity seeks to address this issue by supporting mental health and suicide prevention services to provide placements and appropriate supervision to students.

The objectives of the grant opportunity are to:

• facilitate better access to training placements across a range of mental health and suicide prevention service settings for students undertaking the Certificate IV in Mental Health Peer Work 
• support supervision costs and build organisational readiness to host student placements in the Certificate IV in Mental Health Peer Work
• build capacity and diversity of the mental health and suicide prevention peer workforce.

The intended outcomes of the grant opportunity are to:

• provide increased and improved placement opportunities for peer work students in a range of locations and service settings, including increased access to placements for priority populations and/or areas of greatest need
• increase the number of students completing the Certificate IV in Mental Health Peer Work.

To be eligible you must be one of the following entity types:

• Indigenous Corporation (registered under the Corporations (Aboriginal and /or Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006) 
• Company  
• Corporate Commonwealth Entity 
• Corporate State or Territory Entity  
• Non-corporate State or Territory Entity  
• Non-corporate State or Territory Statutory Authority 
• Cooperative 
• Incorporated Association 
• Statutory Entity  
• Partnership 

If you are applying as a Trustee on behalf of a Trust, the Trustee must have an eligible entity type as listed above.

Applications from consortia are acceptable, providing there is a lead organisation that is solely accountable to the Commonwealth for the delivery of grant activities and is an eligible entity as per the list above. Only the lead organisation can submit the application form and enter into a grant agreement with the Commonwealth.