Lessons Learned From a Victorian Regional Allied Health Professional and Workforce Support Project

Accessing professional support such as professional development, clinical supervision and peer support can be difficult for rural and regional allied health (AH) clinicians and may have a negative impact on workforce recruitment and retention.

The Loddon Mallee Health Network, a Health Service Partnership of 19 health services in North-Western Victoria. Professions included were AH therapy professions.

Five professional support and workforce capacity building strategies were implemented, relating to clinical supervision, building capacity to provide student placements, professional development, graduate support and building AH clinical educator capacity. Program logic was used as the overarching methodology to evaluate the implementation of these strategies.

The project engaged AH managers, clinical educators and clinicians from across the region to collaboratively develop and implement the identified professional support strategies.

Access to professional support and building the capacity of the workforce improved through shared approaches including the following: clinical supervision, professional shadowing and peer support for educators and shared student placements.

Benefits to using a regional approach to plan, deliver and evaluate professional support for AH were identified. Recommendations are made to inform collaborative approaches to professional support in regional settings.