(2011) Evaluation of the Victorian Dual Diagnosis Initiative

1. Executive Summary
1.4 Victorian Dual Diagnosis Initiative
The initiative has entailed a number of major strategies, as follows:
• VDDI teams
• Rural Dual Diagnosis Clinicians
• Education and Training Unit
• Additional Psychiatrist Support
• Reciprocal Rotations.
There are four VDDI teams distributed across metropolitan Melbourne, one for each of the adult clinical
mental health regions. Attached to the teams are Rural Dual Diagnosis Clinicians that are distributed
across the rural adult clinical mental health regions. Their role is to facilitate change in the way that
organisations respond to people with dual diagnosis issues through education and training, provision of
primary and secondary consultation, assisting organisations to change policies and procedures, and a
range of other activities as negotiated with organisations.
An Education and Training Unit is charged with the coordination of statewide training activities, and
building common approaches to education and training.
Additional Psychiatrist Support is targeted particularly towards medical staff in psychiatric settings and
entails Psychiatrists and Psychiatric Registrars with a specialisation in Addiction Medicine, providing
primary, secondary and tertiary consultations.
The Reciprocal Rotations project provides funding to an employing organisation to backfill staff who
vacate their role for a three month period in order to undertake a placement in a different sector to the
one in which they work (although it must be one of the three sectors).
As a result of these strategies and the expectations placed on organisations by Key Directions,
organisations are expected to screen all clients for dual diagnosis issues and either assess or arrange
for an assessment of people who screen positively. Those, for whom an assessment indicates the
presence of dual diagnosis issues, should then have an integrated treatment plan developed which
outlines how both substance use and mental health needs will be met. If the treatment involves two
organisations, then the expectation is that the two organisations, work to the one treatment plan. Such
arrangements are expected to be underpinned by changes to policies and procedures within
organisations and formal agreements between sectors to work collaboratively in meeting people’s dual
diagnosis needs.
Further to this it is also expected that services will collect data on dual diagnosis and review it on a
regular basis with consumer and carer input, to determine progress.
A number of different governance arrangements for the initiative have been attempted in order to
establish a consistent approach to the initiative across all regions, including VDDI teams and workers.
The most consistent components have been the VDDI Leaders Group and the Rural Forum.
1.5 Impact of VDDI
The initiative has had a dramatic impact with regard to building recognition that dual diagnosis is
everyone’s business. This is significant given that some years earlier, the rigid demarcation between
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