Australia is facing a burgeoning mental health workforce crisis and this crisis is more acute in rural areas. Regional and remote Victoria has less than half the number of psychologists per 100,000 population compared to major cities. Training psychologists is a lengthy process and the capacity to train postgraduate psychology students is limited by access to placements. The Psychology discipline of Federation University has embarked on a strategic plan to increase postgraduate psychology places and further our commitment to training the rural and regional psychology workforce. Central to this initiative is a collaboration with The One Red Tree Resource Centre (ORT). ORT is a not-for-profit, high-quality mental health service and psychologist training facility. ORT services the Ararat and Stawell regions in Western Victoria. The communities serviced by ORT are all classified MM4 or MM5.
The Federation and ORT partnership has created a replicable training model with demonstrable success in addressing critical psychological service shortages while providing a supportive placement environment and positive career introduction to the mental health system. It provides a template for boosting the workforce pipeline by increasing the postgraduate psychology training places while building a mental health workforce with the skills and experience required to work in a rural setting. This paper will provide an overview of the model, review the strengths and limitations of the model, and explore the benefits to both trainee psychologists and the community.