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Southern Synergy

Research Activities

Southern Health Mental Health Services Research Governance

The Southern Mental Health Program (SMHP) aims to assist and promote research that: carries benefit to the clients of mental health services; that informs policy and practice and provides opportunities for professional development. All such research needs approval by the Southern Health Human Research and Ethics Committee (SHHREC).

Before any application for research to be conducted in SMHP can go to SHHREC it needs assent from the Executive Director of Mental Health (EDMH) and the Medical Program Director (MPD). Southern Mental Health is a large and diverse service and so there needs to be a mechanism to ensure that the EDMH and MPD are correctly advised in relation to the availability of resources and relevance of the proposed research to SMHP directions. The SMHP process for this is largely distributed for consideration of the specific parts of the service (Directorates) to be involved in the research; once they have considered the proposal then in other than exceptional circumstances the EDMH and MPD will act on advice from the Directorates. This governance process allows SMHP, through the Directorates, to consider the alignment of the work with Strategic Research Directions in SMHP, the resource implications for the Service, and level of involvement in research being asked of clients.

This process needs to begin some weeks before the final SHHREC submission so that the Directorates have the notice required to consider the matter and prepare advice for the EDMH/MPD. The first steps will commonly have been taken some time beforehand with discussions at various levels of formality with services to be involved. In any case the process needs to begin at least 6 weeks before the due date for SHHREC submission, with identification of the Directorates to be involved and preparation of a form that provides a summary overview of the research and resource implications for involvement of SHMP and its clients. The information required for this form is briefer than that in the full SHHREC Submission which does not need to be finalised before the Governance proposal is submitted.

Monitoring of progress of these applications is through the Southern Synergy Centre so correspondence should routinely be copied to this centre at Southern.Synergy@med.monash.edu.au

The process is laid out in text fully in the preamble to the application form. Also provided for reference are a table of timelines and a graphic of the process:
Table of Timelines for Research Governance Applications
Graphic Flowchart for Research Governance Applications

The Application form can be found by following this link:
Southern Mental Health Research Governance Application Form

Human Research and Ethics procedures

Southern Health Human Research and Ethics Approval Processes can be accessed through the Research Directorate website:
http://www.southernhealth.org.au/research/research_directorate.htm