Open Call: Mental Health Capital Renewal Fund (Australia)

The Mental Health Capital Renewal Fund responds directly to recommendations from the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. It aims to address physical safety and wellbeing risks in Victoria’s mental health facilities.

Individual grants of up to $1 million will be available for renewal, reconfigurations, and refurbishments to health facilities. These will help increase safety, quality, and efficiency of services, and improve consumer choice, all while supporting people on their mental health recovery journey.

Objectives

• The key objectives of the Mental Health Capital Renewal Fund are to support:
  • provision of a safe environment for consumers and staff
  • mitigating the risk of accessibility issues and serious incidences impacting staff and consumers
  • improvement of consumer and staff amenities
  • replacing end-of-life and near-end-of-life building engineering services
  • improving staff areas, systems, and technology to improve staffing conditions, reduce administrative burden, and increase time spent treating consumers
  • address damaged and severely deteriorated building fabric allowing for better service delivery and consequential consumer outcomes
  • the effectiveness and efficiency of mental health and alcohol and other drug services.

Focus Areas

• The fund is designed to assist public Victorian mental health clinical services, mental health community support services, and AOD services to complete minor construction, remodelling, and refurbishment capital works across the following key areas:
  • Health and safety risk mitigation works in existing facilities that best mitigate the risk of serious incidents occurring and balance the need to provide safety with service provision in a therapeutic and least restrictive environment.
  • Compliance: ensuring all facilities are compliant with Disability, Building Regulatory Compliance (BRD), Essential Safety Measures (ESM), and Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S).
  • Quality: improve treatment service quality and efficiency of facilities.

Funding Information

• Alcohol and other drug submissions: each project value must fall between a minimum of $10,000 (excluding GST) and a maximum of $1,000,000 (excluding GST)
• Mental health submissions: each project value must fall between a minimum of $10,000 (excluding GST) and a maximum of $1,000,000 (excluding GST)
• Duration: Projects must be completed within 18 months of notification of funding approval.

Eligible Activities

• The following are examples of items which may be included in funding applications:
  • Construction: minor infrastructure including, remodelling and refurbishment projects to address safety and access issues
  • Non-construction: equipment (standalone furniture designed for mental health and AOD settings, fittings, medical equipment, engineering infrastructure and plant)
  • Standard Compliance: Projects and initiatives to ensure compliance with relevant industry standards and regulations
  • Consumer and healthcare worker safety.
• Priority will be given to applications that address the following initiatives:
  • increase and/or improve access to safe bed-based care
  • increase and/or improve access to mental health and AOD services
  • improve consumer, carer, and staff safety through capital investments that provide safe, therapeutic and least restrictive environment into existing facilities, including addressing known WorkSafe notifications
  • improve amenities to enhance recovery, rehabilitation, and therapeutic opportunities
  • minimise the use of restrictive practices or clinically inappropriate environments and improve treatment service equality and efficiency of outcomes
  • upgrade essential infrastructure such as plant equipment and address at-risk asset failure.

Ineligible Activities

• operational funding
• fixtures, fittings, and furniture not associated with a refurbishment project
• routine replacement of furniture and fittings that are worn is the responsibility of agencies to manage as part of their existing maintenance and replacement program
• motor vehicles
• planning funding for future redevelopment/growth projects
• projects that are additional stages of previously funded projects will be de-prioritised.

Eligibility Criteria

• Funding is available to all Victorian public mental health clinical services, state funded mental health community support services, Mental Health and Wellbeing Locals, and state-funded alcohol and other drug services, including providers of residential and non-residential services.

For more information, visit Victorian Health Building Authority.