The Personality Disorder Initiative at Forensicare

Last year, Forensicare was announced as one of six Victorian health services to be funded for the Victorian Government’s Personality Disorder Initiative.

Partnering with Spectrum, Victoria’s state-wide specialist personality disorder service, the Personality Disorder Initiative aims to build the expertise and capability of the mental health workforce to assess, treat and support people with severe personality disorders at high risk of suicide, self-harm, or challenging behaviours.

“We’re working for better outcomes for people with personality disorders,” Forensicare Principal Psychologist—and Lead Clinician in the Personality Disorder Initiative—Claudia Mulder explained.

“We know from research that people with personality disorders often have difficulty getting the help they need—and standard treatments aren’t always effective.”

“We want to make sure we’re better equipped to recognise and understand the needs of consumers with personality disorders so we can improve the effectiveness of treatments, and make sure that people can get the specialist help they mightn’t have previously been able to access.”

Forensicare first applied for the funding in late 2018, when the Department of Health and Human Services announced the initiative to assist services to better address the needs of consumers with personality disorders.

 “The initiative will enable us to improve assessments, provide secondary consultation, education and supervision to our multi-disciplinary teams in relation to personality disorders,” Claudia said.

“Our initial focus is to build the capacity of our clinicians to better assess and understand personality disorders, as better understanding will enable our treatments to be more targeted and hopefully more effective for our consumers,” she added.

“It’s a great opportunity for all services involved, and we intend to make a difference in the lives of people living with complex personality disorders.”

Want to make a difference to the lives of people living with a complex mental illness? Check out our current vacancies for more information.