The Project Air Academy was established to connect and support staff engaged in the Brief Intervention Clinics (Gold Card Clinics) across the state, and to provide a range of services and supports. The Academy was launched in Sydney on 1 September 2017.
The Academy, organised on a hub and spoke model, is served by a central coordinating service at the Project Air Strategy headquarters, and engages with the Ministry, Local Health District (LHD) senior executive, service managers, clinical directors, coordinators of Gold Card Clinics, and clinicians. The Academy works to ensure the initial rollout of the Project Air Strategy across the State is sustainable, ongoing, and continues to deliver leadership and support to ensure best practice.
The Air Academy helps to:
- Maintain strong links between the Project Air Strategy team and local brief intervention (Gold Card) clinic coordinators;
- Provide an opportunity for coordinators to meet each other, share their expertise and local solutions;
- Provide access to training and train-the-trainer resources to support local staff development and training needs within the clinics;
- Provide updates on evidence-based practice, scientific findings, and opportunities for consultation and professional development; and
- Motivate staff to maintain compassionate care for consumers and their families with personality disorder and complex needs.
Project Air supports Academy Fellows in the 6 core strategies and 12 implementation approaches of Project Air across all LHDs and affiliated services.
Example activities supporting the core strategies include:
- Providing professional development and consultation to individual LHDs including provision of core booster training (3hr and 6 hr) and consultation services to ensure LHDs are well supported;
- Providing professional development specific to Academy Fellows, including train-the-trainer resources, to ensure local implementation teams have the resources to support their teams on the ground;
- A clinic consultation service providing complex care reviews of clients of the health service as requested by the Service Director or Clinical Director of the LHD;
- Targeted training and support in specific areas (e.g. family and carer interventions, parenting interventions, peer support programs, group therapies, working with youth and early intervention, schools’ interventions, justice health and drug and alcohol programs);
- Workshops, conferences, and cross-LHD professional development, to ensure efficient use of resources, including use of online platforms to facilitate reach of training across the State;
- Developing and hosting e-learning professional development, webinars and online resources through the Project Air Strategy website; and
- Ongoing research to inform service development and evidence-based practices.
At the second meeting of the Air Academy in June 2018 Dr Murray Wright said the formation of the Project Air Academy represents an important point of maturity in the State's goal of improving services for people with personality disorder. He cited evidence from the Project Air Strategy and internationally which shows that typical savings from implementing specific care can be substantial - not only for hospitals and governments, but also more importantly for the consumers and carers with lived experience.
You can read Dr Wright’s full speech below.
Membership is currently open to clinic coordinators of personality disorder treatment programs.
If you are interested in becoming a member of Air Academy please email Project Air.