Update from the Committee of Management – Women's Mental Health Network Victoria

Women’s Mental Health Network Victoria is a charity that has worked for the promotion of women’s mental health and safety over the past 30 years. The Network has had many successes.

Since late 2019 and throughout this year, we have been working steadily to form a strong and united Committee of Management to lead the Network into a next stage of standing together for women’s mental health. Early this year, we revised the Strategic Plan to clearly document our vision for a culture that understands and respects women’s well-being and self-determination. Together, we set our Mission:

To build on our legacy, we will champion women’s mental health in collaboration with our stakeholders by:

Promoting research
Providing education and training
Participating in health promotion and information to the community
Influencing policy and practice
Contributing to reform

Our Values, Courage, Connection, Integrity, Hope will drive the work we do.

We have worked hard to establish a dedicated core group of women to lead the Network on the Committee of Management. We have established SubCommittees to assist in specific projects including a SubCommittee into Royal Commisssions and Enquiries, a Research and Training SubCommittee, Fundraising SubCommittee and more. If you would like to volunteer to a SubCommittee let us know!

The Network has always been a working collaboration with health professionals and women with a Lived Experience of mental illness standing together. We are currently completely reviewing all the workshops and courses we have provided in the past including Gender Sensitive Training for organisations and the Telling your Story Safely Training for Consumers. Our Research SubCommittee is also working on a research strategy to promote research into women’s mental health. We are also looking into developing some informational resources for women and overhauling communications more broadly.

We are also currently working on establishing and re-establishing collaborations with key stakeholders and are a part of several working parties and alliances around Australia working to enhance the position of womens mental health.

We are excited for this next stage and look forward to offering new and important updates!

Sonja

(Chair, WMHNV)