Transforming Trauma Victoria

While the implementation of TTV remains on hold awaiting future state budgets, we are pleased to be able to share this webinar and associated resources linked to our pilot capacity building projects.

As per the 25-26 Victorian budget, there is no dedicated funding allocated for Transforming Trauma Victoria (TTV). While we are unsure about the full impact of this announcement, it is critical to understand that trauma has long-lasting impacts on consumers, families, carers, workforces, and across multiple social and health systems. We want to acknowledge more than 400+ consumers, family members, carers, frontline workers, and service and system leaders to participate in designing TTV strategies, and are involved in our piloting activities across regions. Without your time and effort, there will be no TTV. TTV consortium members will continue to provide services for trauma-impacted Victorians and we are united as one to ensure that every person can receive trauma-informed care and trauma-focussed services. We will continue the discussion with the Victorian Government and Ministerial Office in relation to the future for the implementation of Recommendation 23. Please refer to Phoenix Australia's statement for further information.

As we are waiting for the budget outcome, we want to know: what if every Victorian could access trauma-informed care—no matter which door they walked through? Trauma isn’t only a mental health issue. It intersects with housing, justice, child protection, alcohol and other drugs, education, and more. Its impacts ripple across families, communities and generations—and the responses must be just as wide-reaching. At Transforming Trauma Victoria (TTV), we recognise that people don’t fit neatly into service boxes. They come with complex stories, diverse identities, and needs that change over time. That’s why our model has always been built on intersectionality, partnership, and flexibility. With the right investment, the future of TTV could include:  🔹 Trauma-informed practice embedded in every part of Victoria’s health and social service systems  🔹 Specialist trauma-focused care available when and where it’s needed most  🔹 Stronger cross-sector collaboration to address the root causes of distress  🔹 A more confident and capable workforce that can respond to trauma with understanding, not judgment. Let's hear from A/Prof Nico Clark as he reflects on his experience working in the intersection between AOD and trauma and the value of TTV for people he works with.

Did you know TTV is partnering with Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing to explore how trauma-informed care can be better implemented in real-world settings? As part of our commitment to translational research and sector partnerships, Transforming Trauma Victoria (TTV) has been leading an action research pilot in collaboration with the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing since 2024. This pilot is being undertaken with the Womens recovery network (WREN)—a specialist mental health service providing inpatient treatment and care for women, and anyone who identifies as a woman, aged 18 and over, experiencing severe mental illness. This is delivered by a partnership between Alfred Health, Goulburn Valley Health, and Ramsay Mental Health. The pilot specifically focuses on WREN’s Hospital-in-the-Home team, operating across Shepparton and metropolitan Melbourne sites. Our piloting activities focus on how gendered safety and trauma- and violence-informed principles can be practically embedded by: 🔹 Supporting leaders and frontline staff to understand apply these principles in daily care 🔹 Delivering training and capability uplift activities for workforce to implement a brief intervention 🔹 Co-developing tools to build sustainable trauma-informed practice beyond the project cycle 🔹Evaluating and tracking impacts of activities in real-time This pilot is an example of how TTV is working to bridge the gap between research and practice—turning lived insight and clinical evidence into meaningful change. Let's hear from A/Prof Ravi Bhat AM as he reflects on our program at WREN.

So what does it actually mean by trauma transformation? In 2023, Transforming Trauma Victoria (TTV) partnered with the Brimbank Mental Health and Wellbeing Local to pilot a demonstrate project to implement trauma-informed practice—funded by the Victorian Department of Health Brimbank Local is a community-based service for people aged 26 and over who are experiencing mental health or wellbeing concerns. It provides person-centred therapies, wellbeing supports, peer worker support, education, self-help resources, and coordinated care planning. The service is delivered by cohealth, in collaboration with Clarity Health Care and the University of Melbourne. We know that for many people, mental health and wellbeing services can be traumatising, especially when trauma is unrecognised or unsupported. TTV is committed to shifting this—not through one-size-fits-all programs, but through localised, co-designed, trauma-informed approaches that reflect the day-to-day realities of a real workforce. At Brimbank Local, we are: 🔹 Co-developing practical tools to support trauma-informed change across teams and community lived experience reference group 🔹 Building staff capability to implement the tools 🔹 Exploring how trauma-informed leadership can drive long-term cultural change It’s one of several initiatives showing how trauma-informed care can become part of everyday interaction in a service—not just another framework. Let's hear from Nicole Bartholomeusz she reflects on our pilot program at Brimbank. #Livedexperience #mentalhealth #trauma #traumainformed

At Transforming Trauma Victoria (TTV), we began with a clear question:  Who are we serving—and how do we build a service system that responds to their needs? To bring that vision to life, we established the TTV Network—a diverse group of over 200 Victorians, including people with lived experience, family, carers, clinicians, researchers, and service leaders. Together, we’ve delivered more than 20 co-design workshops, such as two dedicated community-led workshops with VACCA - Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency, Foundation House, and Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO), and held over 100 conversations and site visits, to shape and test the three core functions of TTV designated by the Royal Commission:  🔹 Capability uplift  🔹 Trauma-focused Therapeutic Service Delivery  🔹 Translational Research This process has informed our organisational strategy, supported the design of pilots and tools, and continued to guide how we implement and evaluate our work. Let's hear from Nikoletta A., who has been supporting us in one of our our codesign group, as she reflects on her experience with us. Then, we found a shared ambition for TTV. It is to embed trauma-informed practice across every door in Victoria’s mental health and wellbeing system—so that everyone can access the right support at the right time, and the workforce has the practice confidence to deliver evidence-based trauma treatment when it’s needed most. We are grateful to all members of the TTV Network whose time, expertise and insight continue to ensure this work stays grounded, responsive, and connected to community. For the next three weeks, we will be focusing on how we are bringing this vision to life through our metro and regional-based pilots. #mentalhealth #livedexperience

From the beginning, Transforming Trauma Victoria (TTV) has been built on the belief that responding to trauma takes more than expertise—it takes power-sharing. We gave formed a unique collaboration of partners across community-based service, hospital, Aboriginal, youth, LGBTQIA+, and refugee and asylum seeker services—each contributing to the design and delivery of a truly statewide trauma service. At the centre of this work is the establishment of TTV Executive Committee co-chaired by lived experience and clinical leaders, ensuring decisions are guided by those who know trauma firsthand and those who support them. These decisions flow directly into operations, where TTV is also co-directed by a lived experience and a clinical lead (Charles Chu & Dr Rahul Khanna). We acknowledge the leadership of our current Co-Chair, Nicole Sadler AM CSC, as well as our former Co-Chairs, David Forbes and Claire Conlon, whose contributions have helped shape the direction of TTV. With more than 750 years of combined service history, our consortium isn’t just building a service—we’re reshaping how the system shares power, works together, and creates lasting change. Let’s hear from Leah McKenner, TTV Executive Committee member, as she shares her reflections on the committee.

Do you know Victoria is home to the world’s first jurisdiction-wide trauma service? Two years ago, we set out to build something unprecedented—Transforming Trauma Victoria (TTV), a trauma service designed not for a single cohort, but for every Victorian affected by trauma. Since then, we’ve grown from a bold recommendation of the Royal Commission into a developed service blueprint—shaped by clinical and lived experience co-leadership, delivered in partnership with 13 leading organisations, and tested through real-world pilots across metro and regional Victoria. As we approach the next phase of work, we’ll be sharing our journey so far—and what comes next. From research translation to workforce capability and trauma-focused services, we’re forging a new way of responding to trauma.  This is mental health reform in action—and we’re just getting started. Follow us to learn more.   #mentalhealth #livedexperience #trauma