The Peregrine Centre is the proud recipient of the Rural Mental Health Partnership Grant from NSW Health. The grant totals $5 million over the next five years and will seek to transform rural mental health practice in NSW through training and research activities.
NSW Rural Mental Health Partnership
The partnership is focussed on improving mental health practice in rural, regional and remote areas across NSW by supporting research and training. For research, The Peregrine Centre engages in a set number of projects in cooperation with Local Health Districts (LHDs) as well as offering Small Project Grants for implementation/evaluation projects being run in rural NSW. For training, we seek to meet the needs of rural mental health practitioners, including those who do not work for the LHD. Local Project Officers working in rural Local Health Districts are on the ground to support services and organisations. This includes working together with services and mental health practitioners to understand their needs, as well as strengthen practice, research, evaluation and quality improvement knowledge and skills.
The team
The project team will be led by Dr Rebecca Sng, with Peregrine consultant Senior Prof. Frank Deane as a Research Lead. We are also very excited to welcome A/Prof Vida Bliokas and A/Prof Peter Kelly from University of Wollongong as the other Research Leads.
Project staff will also include a full-time Research Associate and some time from our Codesign expert, as well as 4-6 Local Project Officers located in the rural areas of NSW.
In addition to this, we will be collecting a roster of content experts, either by virtue of academic research, frontline practice or lived experience, to support research and learning in rural mental health.
The activities
Research and evaluation
Need a one-off consultation about any of the following?
- A research project you would like to implement in your service or in partnership with a service provider
- An existing initiative you would like to evaluate
- Scaling up a successful project
- Disseminating your research findings
- Coordinating a multi-site or statewide evaluation
We offer one off bookings with our Research Associate, or one of our Research Leads when applicable. Take a look a the Rural Mental Health Small Project Grant button below to book a suitable time.
Education and training
- Webinars with follow up group videoconference supervision sessions by a range of experts in practice and research
- Face-to-Face Workshops (around 3 per year)
- Research Summaries – brief, easy to read summaries about the best-practice in a particular topic
Local Project Officers
The Local Project Officers (LPO) at The Peregrine Centre are working on the NSW Rural Mental Health Partnership across nine Local Health Districts. The role includes supporting organisations working with people experiencing mental health difficulties to strengthen practice and research. The LPOs aim to understand what training and education needs mental health practitioners have, and delivering training that makes a sustainable difference. Get in touch with your LPO here.
