Dancing with Health Bureaucrats: Redeveloping Victoria's Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

Abstract

Clinicians and health bureaucrats often find themselves on opposite sides of the fence. As a clinician with an interest in management, I was offered the opportunity to work with health bureaucrats in the Victorian Department of Health and Community Services to redevelop public child and adolescent mental-health services (CAMHS). Recent mental health reforms in the Australian state of Victoria required a blueprint to outline the future directions of services to under-19-year-olds and to help planners, purchasers and providers communicate. My article reports on the general features of the new framework for service delivery in Victoria, describes some of the thinking behind the policies and makes comments on the experience of working with health-policy planners.