School students may lose mental health support after funding clampdown

Some of Victoria’s poorest students could lose access to mental health support after the state government quietly clamped down on funding for psychologists in schools, prompting principals and mental health leaders to sound the alarm.

The move to limit the $200 million Schools Mental Health Fund – created after Victoria’s 2019 mental health royal commission – to fully qualified mental health workers has especially angered schools in Melbourne’s outer suburbs and the state’s regions, where these resources are already scarce.

Eltham High School principal Vincent Sicari says provisional psychologists are an invaluable asset for schools.Credit: Simon Schluter

The national peak body for psychologists has also criticised the move because all psychologists must undergo on-the-job training before they can become fully qualified, and with funding rules tightened for schools, that could lead to fewer placements in schools.

A provisional psychologist is someone who holds a master’s degree in professional or clinical psychology and has earned the marks to undertake an internship. This typically involves a minimum of two years’ weekly supervision with a mentor approved by the medical watchdog.

An Education Department spokesperson claimed the funding parameters had not changed, despite a skills checklist from the first half of the year, seen by The Age, stating that the minimum expected qualifications for a psychologist were “undergraduate bachelor degree [and] postgraduate degree”.

The current checklist for a psychologist reads: “Completion of an approved four-year sequence of study in psychology plus approved training pathway and have general registration with the Australian Health Practitioners Regulatory Agency.”

Eltham High School principal Vincent Sicari said he had employed state-funded provisional psychologists this year for students who had not been able to access mental health services outside of school.

While the feedback from parents, students and teachers had been overwhelmingly positive, the program’s future is now uncertain.

“We just don’t have $56,000 in our budget at the moment,” Sicari said.

“It was a mental health program that supports kids. Why wouldn’t you use a mental health fund to support that? I just cannot understand it. We have teachers that do teacher training. This is a similar thing.”

Ripplebrook Primary School principal Nigel Kilpatrick is facing a similar dilemma for his 41 students in Gippsland.

“We’ve had 10 students, a quarter of our school, access the provisional psychologist,” Kilpatrick said.

“So those students she has been seeing will now have to go and find some external mental health practitioner. The waiting lists for those are quite long. And because we are rural, we don’t have a psychologist on every corner.”

A spokesperson for Psychs in Schools, an agency that earlier this year paired more than 40 provisional psychologists with schools over six months, said the company was hoping for a change of heart.

“We will continue to try and work with the Department of Education to find a solution which would allow provisional psychologists to continue to fall within the ambit of the funding criteria,” the spokesperson said.

“In the meantime, our services will only be available to independent schools and government schools in more affluent areas which can afford to pay for our services.”

Australian Association of Psychologists director Carly Dober said that provisional psychologists were an untapped resource.

“We’re crying out for psychologists all over the country,” Dober said.

“We have up to 8000 skilled provisional psychologists who are educated, they’ve got four years minimum education under their belt, two degrees, they are supervised, who are in their final two years of [practical] eduction. They could be mobilised.”

Master’s of professional psychology student Naddia Di Chele, who is on placement with a regional primary school north-west of Melbourne, said she feared the department’s decision would affect Victoria’s pipeline of psychologists.

“Placements are very hard to come by,” Di Chele said. “We’re doing the role of a fully registered psychologist – it’s just that we have our training wheels on. We’re given so much support.”

Opposition mental health spokeswoman Emma Kealy said the government’s decision was inexplicable.

“For years, the Nationals and Liberals have been calling for more supervision opportunities for provisional psychologists as a simple, low-cost step towards fixing Victoria’s mental health workforce crisis,” Kealy said.

“It is inexplicable that Labor is doing the exact opposite, making it harder for provisional psychologists to become fully qualified, all while cutting access to mental health support for students. It’s already unacceptably difficult for young Victorians to access mental health support.”

In response to questions from The Age, an Education Department spokesperson said the fund was for schools to use fully registered psychologists.

“The registration and qualification requirements for psychologists have not changed since the fund and menu were launched in 2022,” the spokesperson said.

“The department is simultaneously piloting access to provisionally registered psychologists in rural and regional areas through a partnership with One Red Tree.”

Mental Health Minister Ingrid Stitt and Education Minister Ben Carroll were contacted for comment via the premier’s office.

On Monday, Carroll trumpeted an expansion of programs available to students under the Schools Mental Health Fund, but the government’s press release made no mention of provisional psychologists.

The fund was created in 2022 in response to a recommendation in the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System that schools play a critical role in identifying student mental health challenges and making referrals.

Schools can book recommended mental health literacy, natural disaster and grief support services through the fund, as well as employ mental health professionals.

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