Victoria Police Specialist Investigators Support Unit: A Workplace Mental Health and Wellbeing Initiative

In 2018 the Victoria Police Specialist Investigators Support Unit (SISU) was established within Family Violence Command (FVC) at Victoria Police. SISU is staffed by a team of mental health professionals to provide targeted psychological services and interventions to regional and metropolitan Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Teams (SOCIT) and Family Violence Investigation Units (FVIU). The establishment of the unit aligned with findings in the Victoria Police Mental Health Review (2016) that recognised a need for improved support for employees’ safety and wellbeing, particularly those working in themes of child abuse, sexual offending and family violence.

The SISU intervention is a distinctive model, as it works on the on-site embedded proactive provision of psychological services designed to achieve organisational change at a workplace, rather than solely at an individual, level. Services including counselling, training, education and other therapeutic and organisational interventions on a diverse range of complex issues were put in place.

This report provides an outline of the SISU model of service delivery, and an analysis of the service implementation conducted by Monash University on behalf of Victoria Police in 2019/20.