Mental Health Essentials
Improve mental health in your workplace
Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry workplace Mental Health Essentials program offers free mental health training and consulting to small and medium sized businesses who employ young workers and want to create mentally healthy workplaces.
What you’ll get:
Who is eligible to participate?
You can participate in the Mental Health Essentials program if you employ a significant number of young workers (under 25) and are:
- a small business (less than 20 employees)
- a medium-sized business (less than 200 employees)
How do I apply?
Register your interest using Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s online form. One of their consultants will contact you to confirm your eligibility and discuss the next steps.
What does the Mental Health Essentials program involve?
One of their expert consultants will visit your business twice and provide the following services:
First visit
- Briefing session for business owner(s) and senior leaders on how to create and maintain a mentally healthy workplace, including:
- The business case: why mentally healthy workplaces are productive and profitable
- Your legal obligations: understanding how safety, workplace realtions, discrimination, workers’ compensation and privacy laws apply to mental health
- Assisting business owner(s) and senior leaders to complete Worksafe’s WorkWell toolkit and draft a simple, achievable mental health action plan
Second visit
- Mental health training for all workers, including:
- Facts about mental health in Australia
- Recognising early warning signs
- Having a supportive conversation
- Your role in a mentally healthy workplace
- Tips to manage your own mental health
- Mental health training for managers, including:
- Discussing mental health issues with workers
- Communicating with doctors
- Managing team impact
- Making reasonable adjustments to people’s roles
- Managing performance
- Discussion with business owner(s) and senior leaders on how your mental health action plan is progressing, including recommendations for ongoing action
Who pays for the Mental Health Essentials program?
The Mental Health Essentials program is supported by WorkSafe Victoria through the WorkWell Mental Health Improvement Fund.
It’s free for small and medium-sized businesses, however, they will expect you to demonstrate a genuine commitment to the program by:
- encouraging your workers and managers to attend training
- using WorkSafe’s WorkWell Toolkit to draft a mental health action plan and taking meaningful action on your chosen initiatives
Is information about my business confidential?
Yes. Any information that Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry collect about your business to provide the Mental Health Essentials program is confidential and will be handled according to their privacy policy.
WorkSafe Victoria funds the Mental Health Essentials program through the WorkWell program, but will not receive any information that identifies your business.
Need more help or information?
Click the link below to contact us at Plus 1.
Open Hours
Monday to Friday
8:00am to 5:00pm
Closed Public Holidays
If you need to get us documents quickly, access remote support, or the MYOB Portal click the button above.
