About the Role

The Employee Wellbeing Response Team (EWRT) leads the coordination of early response mental health and wellbeing supports for Department of Education (DE) staff in significant distress and at risk of injury. The team provides advice and coordination to school leaders and people managers to support them to respond to early-onset health and wellbeing risk indicators to prevent them from escalating, primarily through the Employee Wellbeing Support Services (EWSS). This includes referral to, and/or coordination of, four key programs under the EWSS:

• Crisis counselling (emergency counselling) is available 24 hours a day, 7 days per week by phone.
• Rapid contact calls which are also a rapid form of support and can be actioned within an hour of being requested in most cases.
• Planned workplace support for provision of onsite counselling to school staff at school sites.
• Employee Wellbeing Support Services where staff members can also access and make appointments for counselling with less urgency.

The EWRT also provides specialist support in response to serious employee injury and complex safety incidents. EWRT support is sometimes required out of hours, including on public holidays and weekends. To ensure continuity of service, the EWRT has established a standby roster. A VPS5 or VPS6 team member will be rostered on standby on weekends and public holidays to respond to emergencies or critical incidents involving DE staff, students or property.

A member of the EWRT attends Incident Management Team (IMT) stand up meetings in response to critical incidents that impact on schools and corporate workplaces. The IMT is usually coordinated by the Executive Director or Director, Security and Emergency Management Division (SEMD) or their delegate.

Working as part of the EWRT, the Senior Mental Health Advisor will:

• provide high quality, empathic and responsive advice to school leaders and people managers about the mental health supports available under the department's EWSS and other programs, and provide coordination and support to enable those services to be deployed to staff in need
• support effective deployment of the Early Intervention program, which is aimed at providing support to staff with specialised and escalated mental health needs
• operationalise other mental health and wellbeing programs
• provide schools with in-person visits to promote and support the services for staff psychosocial recovery
• support the EWRT eduSafe Plus triage function
• be on-call from time to time.

Due to the responsive nature of this role, some state-wide travel will be required for this role, advance notice will be provided.

The position will report to the Manager Employee Wellbeing Response Team.

Attributes

The required capabilities for the role are set out in the position description (see attachment).

Qualifications and Experience

Essential: Relevant qualification in mental health, allied health, OHS, education or related field.

Essential: Experience working in mental health, education and/or OHS.

Essential: Current Victorian drivers license.

About the Division

The Employee Safety, Wellbeing and Inclusion Division (ESWID) is committed to the department's vision to create healthy and safe working and learning environments for department employees to thrive and succeed.

ESWID performs its functions through five branches that span prevention, response and recovery, as well as strategy, advice and support. These teams adopt a holistic approach for supporting the health, safety and wellbeing of our workforce across schools, central and regional offices. This includes Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) and Workers' Compensation policy advice and support, for both physical and psychosocial wellbeing. The objectives of the division are to:

• promote positive wellbeing in learning and working environments
• prevent against known and expected risks to health, safety and wellbeing
• respond swiftly and effectively to manage potential issues as they emerge and prevent injuries
• support employees to recover from injury and illness, and return to work.

Further Information

For more details regarding this position please see attached position description for the capabilities to address in application.

The department values diversity and inclusion in all forms - gender, religion, ethnicity, LGBTIQ+, disability and neurodiversity. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. For more information about our work, working for the Department, diversity and inclusion, and our employment conditions visit the Department website and our Diversity and Inclusion page.

Applicants requiring adjustments can contact the nominated contact person.

Information about the Department of Education's operations and employment conditions can be located at www.education.vic.gov.au.

For further information pertaining to the role, please contact Ana.Zrenjanin via [email protected].

Preferred applicants may be required to complete a police check and may be subject to other pre-employment checks. Information provided to the Department of Education will be treated in the strictest confidence.

Please let us know via phone or email if you require any adjustments to ensure your full participation in the recruitment process or if you need the ad or any attachments in an accessible format (e.g. large print) due to any viewing difficulties or other accessibility requirements.

Applications close 11:59pm on Sunday 5 October 2025.

About the Department

The department provides a wide range of learning and development support and services.

The department provides policy leadership, plans for the future of education in Victoria and leads key cross-sector collaboration. The department plays an important system steward role by providing support, guidance, oversight and assurance across early childhood and school education systems, as well as directly providing school education and 50 new early learning centres.