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VTPU Services
Victorian Transcultural Psychiatry Unit provides a range of services that seek to improve the quality of life and the efficacy of mental health services for people across all backgrounds. We believe that doing this will encourage people from different cultural backgrounds to access the mental health services available and to improve the overall wellbeing of the community. We develop services capable of achieving this through our service development program. Here are some of our services:


Community Program
We work with our partners to improve the awareness and publicity for mental health services in local communities. We believe that once people understand that this service is very accessible to them, they will be more open to taking advantage of and using it. Activities under this program include:
Consultant services with communities so as to identify the most pressing mental health needs and develop a suitable solution to those needs
Fostering a better understanding of what mental health services are all about through community education initiatives which further helps to reduce the stigma within the communities.
Partnership with community organisations, carers, consumers, specific agencies and all health care providers.
Serving as a linkage between ethnic communities and mental health services by referring community members to the suitable support services

Education and Professional Development:
workers with the necessary skill and knowledge required to function efficiently when delivering mental health and psychiatry services to clients with diverse cultural background. These educational and developmental programs come in the form of training, lectures, workshops, as well as seminars. By equipping mainstream health workers with cultural competence skill for their services, we ensure that the gap existing between a carer and client is further bridged regardless of their diverse backgrounds. We are continuously looking for ways to improve these education and developmental programs by;
- Developing suitable programs that reflects the needs of the mental health workers and the diverse communities they serve
- Collaborating with managers of mental health services in different areas to plan and organise education and developmental programs for their staff
- Working with health care providers to produce a transcultural educational program that can reach a much wider audience.