The Bouverie Centre, Victoria’s Family Institute is a unique public institute located within La Trobe University’s Faculty of Health Sciences. Our work focuses on the important role of the family and the power of relationships to foster social, emotional and mental wellbeing for at risk individuals and their families and for the community at large. We are publicly funded with the majority of funds emanating from Victoria's Department of Human Services.

 

 

The Bouverie Centre was established as a clinical mental health setting for children and adolescents and their families in the 1950’s (The Bouverie Clinic) and from the late 60’s pioneered the development of family therapy training and practice in Victoria. In the early 80’s the focus moved to include adult clinical populations and by the late 80’s our training programs became the first academic family therapy courses in Australia.

 

Since this period a major focus of our work has been to support all Victorian mental health services (via training, supervision and consultation) to include families as part of their total approach to service provision; Family Sensitive Practice (FaST). This endeavor has led to a growing connection with carers and consumers of mental health services in a number of projects. More recently we have developed specific training for professionals within agencies e.g.: Single Session Work in the Community Health sector or Clinical Supervision in the AOD (The Community Services Team). All our programs are integrated through our Research and Evaluation unit and through our staff who most commonly work across a number of program areas. Our academic courses now range from Graduate Certificate to Master level and we have a number of students involved in higher degree research projects (PhD).

 

 

Our Centre also has a number of other specialist projects and teams notably the ABI (Acquired Brain Injury Team) that works with families, agencies and the community to minimise the various social and emotional effects of traumatic head injury. The Indigenous Project Team that is working with Indigenous child and family workers to build skills and capacity across Victoria via rigorous academic training and local supervision. Also within the Mental Health Program we have a number of specialized initiatives, which include the work of the State’s Carer Academic and the coordination of the FaPMI strategy.

 

 

Our general Clinical Program provides family therapy services to families whose presenting issues comply with our intake policy, which relates to our funding sources and their mandate. This service is limited by staff availability and accessible via the intake worker. We also provide clinical services in conjunction with our academic programs.

 

The Centre is staffed for the most part by family therapists made up from a broad range of mental health professionals from varied disciplines. 

 

 

We hope you enjoy the facilities of this website and we welcome your feedback.