Lessons from Australia in the public funding of mental health services.

If Canada is to enter the realm of public funding of private mental health services well prepared, psychology needs to draw on the experience of other countries to avoid known pitfalls and position the profession to best utilize its expertise in mental health. In Australia, the low training requirements that lead to registration of psychologists have provided a large workforce to meet the ever-expanding demand for mental health services, but have also led to the undermining, devaluing, further downgrading, and blurring of professional psychology standards and expertise. This positioning of psychology has fragmented the profession. A brief outline of key factors contributing to this diminishing of the profession and the high demand for low-cost services are outlined to demonstrate that similar parallel differentials and challenges are present for psychology in the Canadian context. To avoid similar impacts on psychology in Canada, the profession needs to unite and recognise that it is unable to meet the needs of the population for mental health services and to claim a role of expert in mental health to enable the public to make best use of the expertise of psychologists.Keywords: funding, mental health, workforce, qualifications, AustraliaResumeSi le Canada veut s'attaquer au financement public des services de sante mentale du secteur prive, la psychologie doit mettre a profit l'experience des autres pays afin d'eviter les pieges connus et positionner la profession de sorte a mieux exploiter son expertise dans le domaine de la sante mentale. En Australie, les faibles exigences en matiere de formation menant a l'inscription des psychologues ont cree un important bassin de main-d'oeuvre pour repondre a la demande croissante de services de sante mentale. Cela a toutefois egalement entraine la devalorisation, la devalua- tion, la degradation et une certaine ambiguite de l'expertise et des normes relatives a la psychologie professionnelle. En fait, ce positionnement de la psychologie a fragmente la profession. Un bref apercu des facteurs cles ayant contribue a cette devaluation de la profession et a la forte demande de services bon marche sont exposes dans le but de demontrer que des defis et des ecarts paralleles semblables sont aussi presents dans le contexte cana- dien. Si l'on veut eviter que des effets similaires se produisent sur la psychologie au Canada, la profession a besoin de s'unir et de reconnaitre qu'elle est actuellement incapable de repondre aux besoins de la population dans le domaine des services de la sante mentale et de revendiquer un role d'expert en sante mentale afin de permettre au public de profiter de l'expertise des psychologues.Mots-cles : financement, sante mentale, main-d'oeuvre, qualifica- tions, Australie.Following the lead of the United Kingdom and Australia, Can- ada is ideally positioned to enter into public funding of private mental health services well informed and aware of the issues that are likely to emerge. Having seen somewhat different models of service delivery rolled out in other countries, Canada is able to select the model, or combination of models, that best suits its population and distribution of mental health professionals. How- ever, it is essential that this be undertaken with awareness of the potential impacts of these models on the profession of psychology in the Canadian context.Psychology needs to position itself with care to avoid known pitfalls and to ensure the best utilisation of psychology services for the public. Unfortunately, in Australia, the experience of public funding of private mental health services has led to the fragmen- tation and demoralisation of the psychology profession and the devaluing of qualifications and training, particularly in clinical psychology, the training most required for treating mental health problems.The Public Funding of Private Psychology Services in AustraliaMental health services in Australia are funded by a combination of government (national, state, and territory) and private health insurance funds. …

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