Australian & New Zealand Mental Health Association Rural Mental Health Conference 2024

A practical, cross-sector forum focused on improving mental health and wellbeing in rural and remote communities. Sessions translate evidence and lived experience into services that work—covering prevention, early intervention, crisis response, and sustainable models of care.

What You Will Learn

• How to design and deliver place-based, culturally safe mental health programs

• Early identification, brief interventions, and referral pathways suited to rural contexts

• Workforce strategies: recruitment, retention, supervision, and wellbeing of staff and volunteers

• Using telehealth, digital tools, and outreach to bridge distance and access barriers

• Partnerships with primary care, schools, First Nations organisations, agriculture and industry

• Funding, commissioning, and evaluation approaches that demonstrate impact

Event Details

• Format: Keynotes, case studies, concurrent sessions, workshops, and panels

• Structure: Prevention & promotion → Early intervention → Community treatment & crisis → Recovery & lived experience → Systems & policy

• Takeaways: Toolkits, templates, and checklists you can deploy immediately

Who Should Attend
Clinicians, peer workers, service leaders, primary care teams, school counsellors and educators, First Nations health organisations, NGOs, government and commissioning bodies, researchers, local government, and community advocates.

Why Attend

• Turn policy into practical, context-fit solutions for rural settings

• Learn from programs that have scaled—what worked, what didn’t, and why

• Build partnerships that improve access, safety, and continuity of care