Depression, anxiety and behavioural disorders are among the leading causes of illness and disability in young people. But with early intervention – and health care facilities designed to meet their needs – young people are supported to get the help they need.

The Victorian Government is investing $141 million to deliver new and refurbished youth prevention and recovery care (YPARC) facilities across the state, as part of its response from the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System.

A new mental health facility for young people opened in Parkville earlier this year. Known as Orygen Recovery, the $11.9 million North West Metropolitan YPARC service provides up to 28 days of treatment and support in a residential setting for young people aged between 16 – 25 who are experiencing mental ill health.

Adjacent to the Orygen Youth Mental Health facility, the new centre is built over two levels, and provides 10 private bedrooms on each level. The lower level is called Garrang (meaning wattle) and the upper level is called Bunjil, (meaning eagle). The names were chosen by young people with lived experience of mental ill-health, in consultation with the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation.

Offering a short‑term ’step up’ from community care or ‘step down’ from hospital, the YPARC service is staffed 24 hours, with support offered in a home-like setting, with shared kitchen, dining, lounge room and activity spaces.

Providing the right support

Katharine Davies is a Recovery Coordinator for Orygen, joining North West Metropolitan YPARC centre when it opened earlier this year. 

With more than 30 years’ experience as a Registered Psychiatric Nurse and having worked in adult prevention and recovery care services, Katharine has seen first-hand how these important residential facilities are supporting people experiencing mental ill health take important steps towards their recovery.

Orygen has a multi-disciplinary team, consisting of youth wellbeing team peer workers, family peer workers and clinicians. The Youth Wellbeing Team ensures the experiences of young people is non-clinical and focusses on psychosocial recovery and personal recovery goals.

‘The peer space has been very important, which is staffed by two youth peer workers and family peer workers, supporting young people and their family,’ says Katherine.

The clinical element holds clinical governance, provides clinical expertise, and oversight to the program. Input from their leadership team, nurses and psychiatrists ensures they’re using evidence-based practise and treatment within the program. Regular reviews and management of their mental health and risks is also integrated. 

The young people at North West Metropolitan YPARC centre vary from 16 to 25 years old, with the average age being 19. Each young person has a therapist or case manager within Orygen, and are willing and motivated to be at Orygen, with most staying for around 25 days.

Katharine explains the young people typically have a specific focus that they want to work on, with most bonding over a common form of social anxiety.

‘The young people start connecting very quickly. Friendships have been developed that continue after they leave. The feedback they are providing us suggests that the group program and key working are beneficial. They are learning and feeling better than when they first arrived,’ said Katharine.

An alternative to hospital-based care

The YPARC services including the new North West Metropolitan Youth Prevention and Recovery Care in Parkville provides an alternative to hospital admission with its flexible, and around-the-clock clinical care for young people, with recovery-focused treatment.

‘One of our aims is to prevent a hospital admission occurring in the first place. We can do this by encouraging early intervention and placement into our program before a deterioration in mental state and therefore an admission,’ Katharine said.

The YPARC facility in Parkville has been designed to encourage independence, self-care, and routine for young people. The building is bright, modern, and safe, surrounded by peaceful parklands, to support the centre’s non-clinical psychosocial approach.

Group programs offered, such as cooking, have proved a popular way to support young people in staying focused on their goals in an educational, therapeutic and fun manner.

Having a nurse or general clinician on site each day also means young people can work in collaboration with their key nurse, keyworker and their case manager.

‘What is unique to YPARCs is the midway meeting that allows the young person to tell their case manager, community worker or family member what they are doing and what improvements they have made.

‘We also set an exit date well in advance so they have a date that they can work towards and also start the linkages back home,’ explains Katharine.

A brighter future

Since opening its doors in mid-May 2022, the YPARC centre in Parkville has supported many young people experiencing mental ill health. The facility has also improved communication with family through education and family peer worker support, as well as aided young people to overcome their anxiety of connecting with others.

For Katharine, it’s about young people becoming more in control of their own lives to build resilience and contribute back to their community.

‘Meaningful relationships, connections and purpose are all part of the recovery journey. The YPARC we operate here in Parkville is all about instilling this in young people, giving them hope for their future.’

Getting mental health support

Mental health helplines can provide support if you or someone you know is experiencing mental ill health:

• Beyondblue – call 1300 224 636 for telephone support, information and resources for people dealing with depression or anxiety.
• Lifeline – call 13 11 14 for this free, 24-hour Australia-wide crisis support and suicide prevention service.
• Kids Help Line – call 1800 55 1800 for free counselling and advice for young people between the ages of five and 25.

A comprehensive list of counselling, online and phone supports for mental illness is available on the Better Health Channel website.

Placing wellbeing at the forefront of design benefits the health of the people who live, work and visit public buildings.

For this year’s World Architecture Day, we speak to Barbara Bamford, Director of Bamford-Architects, the firm that helped deliver the new North West Women’s Prevention and Recovery Care (WPARC) centre and North West Metropolitan Youth Prevention and Recovery Care (YPARC) centre in Parkville.

Read on to learn more about the projects. 

Tell us about your role at Bamford-Architects?
I’m the Director, Design Architect, Office Manager… and more often than I like, cleaner!

How long have you been working in the industry and what encouraged you to start your own architecture firm?
I’ve been an architect for 24 years. Prior to setting up Bamford-Architects 12 years ago, I had worked at two successful and well-known Melbourne design practices. I got to work on a wide range of project types – including care environments, where I found my greatest passion and aptitude. 

I wanted to pursue these types of projects on my own terms; I felt keenly that I was “working for the man” and that the man was exclusively a group of men. It was important to me to throw my hat in the ring, to challenge this pattern.

The theme for World Architecture Day is ‘Architecture for Wellbeing’. What does this mean to you?
Architecture impacts physical, emotional, social, and mental wellbeing. This is important across all types and is self-evidently important in healthcare buildings – in particular, residential healthcare.

Bamford-Architects has been researching this via our projects over the last 12 years. We’re exclusively about ‘for purpose’ architecture and firmly believe that our work is only successful when we design buildings that are restorative and positively contribute to environmental, financial and social wellness.

How does Bamford-Architects incorporate wellbeing in design?
We design buildings in the context of how they promote social connection, choice, good eating habits, sense of agency, comfort, and connection to nature. In the latter regard, we work with talented landscape architects to design natural spaces that are soothing and restorative. It can be an intuitive process and is full of trade-offs and negotiations as the design evolves. We revisit the visions and goals – which are defined by the building users – throughout the design process to ensure they don’t get lost. 

What are some of the key design considerations for the North West Metropolitan Youth Prevention and Recovery Care centre in Parkville?
The Youth PARC is located on a hilly site adjacent to Royal Park. During the co-design process, we heard from staff and lived experience consumers that they wanted to maximise the outlook and connection to the landscape, which would help differentiate the PARC from their acute facility experience.

The building is made up of two L- shaped houses – each wrapping around an outdoor area. A fully glazed deck runs along the courtyard frontage, maximising the physical and visual connections between the indoor and outdoor areas. This gently connects communal and circulation areas visually, while simultaneously maintaining an appropriate level of separation between private and public spaces. The design responds to the co-design group’s brief for an ‘earthy, non-hierarchical, lounge-y, non-institutional building’.

What are some of the key design considerations for the North West Women’s Prevention and Recovery Care centre? 
The key driver was to create a sense of safety and privacy, without a sense of enclosure. Several fully and partially enclosed courtyards are centrally located within the building, with communal spaces and circulation looking onto these areas.

There are a good range of internal and external communal spaces so that the women using the facility – some of which have young children – can choose the space that’s appropriate for them, at that time. These include sitting nooks, several lounge spaces to choose from, a dedicated children’s garden, a generous deck and outdoor sitting area, and a veggie garden. 

How do the different design elements promote wellbeing?
In both projects there are strong visual connections across all courtyards and throughout communal spaces and circulation areas. The planning flows from one space to the next, so that spaces are loosely appreciable from all other areas. This encourages social interaction by allowing staged entry from private to communal spaces.

Each facility has strong physical and visual connections to outdoor spaces, promoting easy use of these spaces for therapy, play, dining, gardening and quiet relaxation. Abundant daylight is provided in all spaces and all materials are selected for their warmth and minimal impact on health and the environment.

How does Bamford-Architects typically go about designing these facilities?
We relish the project briefing / co-design process. We try to make this as collaborative as possible and design in real-time wherever possible. We learn so much from the stories and insights of staff and lived experience representatives.

It’s one of the areas of our work that gives us the greatest joy – engaging with people who because of their life experience have enormous value to add. They quickly bring into focus what works and where thinking has become tired. At its best, this is an empowering process for all concerned and absolutely delivers the best built result. 

What design input has Bamford-Architects provided on these projects that make you most proud?
PARCs come with quite a technical brief; we love the challenge of working out how to detail the spaces, fixtures and fittings that come with the brief, to provide generous and warm environments, that don’t read as institutional or clinical, while meeting requisite safety, operational, servicing, and of course budgetary constraints. With each project we learn how to do this a little better. It makes us proud that what we learn along the way informs the next project – getting ever-better results. 

How has design been used to create a homelike environment across both facilities? 
For us, the term ‘home-like’ is just a starting off point; we extend this description to something that’s familiar and legible, but also connected, comfortable, and a bit special. We aim to create spaces that are beautiful and generous and nurturing, for those who care, are cared for and visit our buildings. 

Kitchens are warm and domestic looking but are located and planned so that they’re central, visible, accessible and comfortable for multiple users. Kitchen and living spaces are all very generous in volume – more so than most homes – so that they are comfortable for multiple residents who may have heightened sensitivity to people around them.

Bedrooms are required to meet a similar safety level as an acute mental health facility. Acute facilities can read as industrial design objects. We actively resist treatments that could be reminiscent of an acute bedroom. We heard loud and clear from lived experience representative that’s the very last thing they want a PARC to feel like. 

How has the team used co-design to aid the design process of PARC centres and how has it benefitted the wellbeing aspect?
The co-design process leads the design process. We try to make this as collaborative as possible and design together in real-time wherever possible. We routinely come to design conclusions that we wouldn’t have considered without the co-design process and certainly not without the frank insights from lived experience representatives.

Wellbeing is promoted by having the voices of those who will use the building embedded in the design. It makes the design – all about promoting wellbeing – a better solution. Which is a win for all involved.

The Victorian Government invested $11.9 million in the new North West Metropolitan Youth Prevention and Recovery Care (YPARC) centre in Parkville.

The 20-bed facility provides short and medium-term treatment and support in a residential setting for young people experiencing mental illness in Melbourne’s west.

The new facility is one of 25 prevention and recovery care centres across Melbourne and regional Victoria, providing community-based treatment for young people aged 16 - 25 who are unwell or recovering from mental illness.

Located in Parkville’s mental health precinct alongside the Orygen Youth Mental Health facility, the new centre will provide care and support to 200 young people each year.

Find out more about the North West Metropolitan Youth Prevention and Recovery Care centre on our dedicated project page.

The Victorian Government invested $8.4 million to build a new Women's Prevention and Recovery Care (WPARC) centre in Melbourne’s west to support women experiencing mental ill health.

Based near Sunshine Hospital, the 12-bed centre is the first prevention and recovery care centre to provide residential treatment and support for women with accommodation for dependent young children.

The centre provides treatment for women who are becoming mentally unwell, or who are in the early stages of recovering from an acute mental illness and need a short-term additional support.

Find out more about the North West Women’s Prevention and Recovery Care centre on our dedicated project page.

Medical equipment and engineering infrastructure

Twenty-eight health services across Victoria are sharing $85 million in funding to upgrade or replace vital medical equipment and engineering infrastructure

Cutting-edge equipment funded as part of the Medical Equipment Replacement Program includes CT scanners and digital x-ray units.

Generators, lifts and emergency lighting upgrades will be funded through the Engineering Infrastructure Replacement Program.

Find out more about what the Medical Equipment Replacement Program and Engineering Infrastructure Replacement Program will deliver.

Surgical equipment

Thirty-five health services are sharing $20.25 million in funding from the Surgical Equipment Innovation Fund.

The funding will upgrade and replace 178 items of medical equipment at busy hospitals across the state.

From Melbourne to Ballarat and Shepparton to the Bass Coast, the Fund was established to ensure health services can upgrade their surgical equipment and diagnostic machines with the latest technology to help get more patients into surgery.

Learn more about the Surgical Equipment Innovation Fund.

In the spotlight

Building a new hospital for Melton

The Victorian Government has committed more than $900 million to deliver a new Melton Hospital in Cobblebank, transforming the outer west.

The fully electric hospital will deliver 24/7 emergency, at least 274 beds, an intensive care unit, maternity and neonatal services, mental health services, radiology services and outpatient care.

Once completed, the new Melton Hospital will have capacity to treat 130,000 patients each year and see almost 60,000 patients in the emergency department. 

See how we’re building your new Melton Hospital

• Take our survey by 16 October
• Attend a community information session on 6 or 8 October
• Major infrastructure: Sign up for our industry briefing on 6 October

Women in Melbourne’s western suburbs now have better access to mental health support with a Victorian-first centre now open.

The new $8.4 million North West Women’s Prevention and Recovery Care centre (WPARC) is open, providing vital mental health services.

It is the first purpose-built WPARC where women can stay with dependent children.

The centre provides short-term mental health care and will help up to 150 women each year receive treatment in a safe and welcoming environment.

The new $81.58 million Wantirna residential aged care facility is now complete.

The four-storey facility will provide 120 older Victorians with a safe, modern and comfortable place to call home. Every resident will enjoy the dignity and independence of their own private bedroom, complete with ensuite bathroom.

Project pulse

In case you missed it

Procurement

Recently published:

• Rutherglen Residential Aged Care Development – Main Works – Expression of Interest (closing 13 October 2022)
• Camperdown Residential Aged Care Development – Main Works (closing 24 November 2022)

We encourage suppliers to register on Buying for Victoria (tenders.vic.gov.au) and the Industry Capability Network (ICN Gateway) to view VHBA offers to supply. Find out more about VHBA procurement.

Dementia-friendly environments are created using a flexible approach that maximises people’s freedom and involvement through supportive, familiar, meaningful and safe surroundings.

Dementia-friendly design works to maximise independence and safety using intuitive and ergonomic design. It supports people with a broad range of functional needs such as reduced mobility, sensory losses and a wide variety of complex conditions.

The design approach carefully considers both physical and social environments. It looks at people’s unique needs and abilities, and how they maintain a sense of purpose through familiarity and connection.

A homelike environment is key to dementia friendly design. While home environments can take many forms, they all share certain domestic qualities.

A homelike environment:

• allows people to continue the tasks of daily living
• uses their existing skills
• gives choice and independence with familiarity and comfort.

Richard Blight is a Director at Blight, Blight & Blight – the architecture firm who designed the $3.2 million dementia-friendly unit at Creswick Nursing Home. Richard explains how their team engages with residents to establish what home means to them.

When building an aged care facility, design strategies to create a homelike environment include:

• a small household model
• private bedrooms that can be personalised
• easy access to outdoor areas
• a diverse range of common areas.

Small household model

The completed $55.57 million St George’s Hospital aged care facility (Berengarra) was the first stage of the Victorian Government’s Modernisation of Metropolitan Melbourne Public Sector Residential Age Care Strategy.

The 90-bed facility is made up of two separate three-storey houses, with pitched roofs and brickwork to create a homelike feel. Each floor is divided into small households, creating a familiar environment that is easier to navigate. Key facilities such as dining and lounge areas are close by – also assisting those who cannot travel long distances due to frailty.

Private bedrooms

Individual bedrooms and bathrooms provide dignity and independence to residents in aged care. The $6.3 million Edenhope and District Memorial Hospital redevelopment included the construction of 18 private rooms and ensuites. This replaced the existing shared rooms, allowing providing privacy to residents.

Easy access to outdoor areas

Easy access to outdoor areas is important when creating a homelike environment. These areas need to be welcoming, engaging and safe.

At the dementia-friendly unit at Creswick Nursing Home, rooms are clustered around a central courtyard that can be sealed off from the rest of the facility. This allows residents to circulate freely and safely. Two outdoor seating areas encourage residents to spend time outdoors, while raised wheelchair-accessible garden beds allow residents to garden.

The outdoor space provides residents with choice. They can enjoy the outdoor space actively, or simply spend time on their own. The courtyard design also means that outdoor areas are visible from indoors, increasing a sense of connection to the natural environment.

A diverse range of common areas

A diverse range of common areas facilitate choice and lifestyle options for residents. It also supports them to maintain family and community connections.

For example, once construction of the $81.58 million new Wantirna residential aged care facility is complete in 2022, the facility will include multipurpose common areas, as well as a community room, sacred space and café. This will give residents greater choice, with access to areas for socialising, activities or quiet time alone.

Making public sector aged care facilities dementia-friendly is part of the Victorian Government’s work to modernise public residential aged care facilities.

The interim report released on 31 October 2019 by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Royal Commission signalled the need for fundamental system reform to better support quality and safety. This includes a focus on building design.

We’re working with the Department of Health’s Aged Care Branch to update our Public sector residential aged care (interim) facility design guidelines to respond to some of the recommendations from the Royal Commission. The updated guidelines will also be informed by our recently released Universal design policy and charter.

The Department of Health will also be updating its dementia-friendly environments guidance and resources in consultation with a broad cross-section of stakeholders, including people living with dementia.

Continued investment in aged care

As part of the Modernisation of Metropolitan Melbourne Public Sector Residential Aged Care Strategy, the Victorian Government is investing:

• $81.58 million for a new 120-bed facility in Wantirna
• $134.6 million for a 150-bed facility at the Kingston Centre in Cheltenham
• $900,000 to deliver the first phase of designing and planning a new 90-bed public residential aged care facility in Coburg.

For rural and regional Victoria, $65 million was announced as part of the 2021-22 State Budget to modernise and upgrade public residential aged care services:

• $57.11 million to redevelop the Glenview Community Nursing Home in Rutherglen
• $4.95 million to design and plan a 36-bed facility within Camperdown Hospital.
• $2.93 million to design and plan a 16-bed residential aged care facility as well as eight acute beds in Cohuna.

The Victorian Government has also established the $10 million Rural Residential Aged Care Facilities Renewal Program. The program enables rural and regional residential aged care services across Victoria to invest in modern infrastructure and equipment.

By delivering dementia-friendly residential aged care facilities, we’re ensuring access to high quality public aged care close to home. This will support older Victorians to remain independent and keep well for as long as possible.

This article was originally published on 17 March 2022.

Key questions

Building your new Melton Hospital

As one of the most significant new hospital projects in the State, it takes a lot of planning and meaningful engagement with the local community and a range of stakeholders to help shape the services, priorities and look and feel of a new hospital.

It’s a complex job but we’re well on our way…

Community engagement

It takes a lot of planning and many conversations to work out what the right hospital for your community will look like.

Throughout the process, we engage with service users, people with lived experience, staff, experts and the local community to identify the new hospital’s requirements to ensure we deliver an asset that reflects the community it serves.

Architects, engineers, health planners, hospital staff and community advisory groups all contribute to shaping the design, by considering things like how the patient will move through the hospital.

Opportunities for community input will be provided in multiple ways to ensure everyone can have their say, such as through the community consultative committee, information sessions and online surveys.

Community input will be captured and provided to shortlisted bidders, with the opportunity to be reflected in the design and operation of the new hospital.

We’re committed to keeping you informed and involved in the development of your new Melton Hospital.