Live4Life - School Mental Health Fund

We are excited to officially announce that Live4Life has been included in the Victorian Government’s School Mental Health Fund, evidence-based Menu as a Tier 1 program: Positive Mental Health Promotion. 

Importantly Live4Life has been defined as Level 3: Foundational and emerging evidence for program. Independently assessed by the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Program Evaluation this means that Live4Life has been tested over time, the research has been independently conducted and the evaluation is publicly available. 

This is the first iteration of the menu and the fund will be available for rural and regional schools from Term 3, 2022. The menu is available for all schools (i.e. government, independent, and Catholic) to view but funding is only available for Victorian government.

Victorian Government schools will have access to a base amount of $25,000 annually over 3 years, and funding must be spent on menu programs. Schools are able to collaborate with other schools and pool the funds available from the menu to address common mental health and wellbeing objectives. 

As outlined in the guidelines, pooling funding may help schools to: 

• access programs, staff or resources from the Menu that are beyond the reach of a single school’s allocation, yet are identified as a collective need by multiple schools in a local area 

• support a larger community-focused initiative that needs sustained support to result in long-term practice change

• strengthen links with local schools and other education settings enabling a more collaborative approach to identifying and meeting the needs of children and families in the local community.

Youth Live4Life are still waiting for more details and have been informed that provider briefings will be held early November.