2026 Frontline Mental Health Conference

2–3 March 2026 RACV Royal Pines Resort, Gold Coast, QLD

The Frontline Reimagined: Driving Systems Change Through Culture, Connection, and Collective Care

Australia’s leading event for frontline mental health is back in 2026. Two days of transformative ideas, honest conversations, and real collaboration, built for the people who keep our systems going.

About the Conference

Challenging the status quo of mental health in frontline settings for positive change.

The 2026 Frontline Mental Health Conference (FMHC26) brings together professionals from across emergency services, defence, healthcare, mental health, and community support.

What unites them is a shared commitment: to reimagine how mental health is supported, protected, and embedded into the culture of frontline work.

FMHC26 will focus on practical strategies and system-level thinking, with insights from frontline leaders, mental health practitioners, peer workers, researchers, and people with lived experience.

With topics covering cross-agency collaboration, trauma recovery, peer support, climate resilience, moral injury, suicide prevention, leadership, stigma, family systems and more, this year's program reflects the real complexity of frontline mental health and the innovative solutions emerging across the sector.

Whether you're in uniform or behind the scenes, in service delivery or policymaking, this is your space to listen, speak, and shape what comes next.

FMHC26 is designed for anyone who supports, studies, or has lived experience of mental health in the frontline context.

You’ll be in good company if you’re a:

Paramedic, firefighter, police officer or emergency responder
Defence or ex-service member
Peer supporter, chaplain, or welfare officer
Mental health clinician or allied health professional
Researcher, policymaker or program lead
Leader or team manager working in high-pressure environments

Thought-provoking keynotes
Practical, research-informed strategies
Sector-specific breakout sessions
Dedicated wellness program to support your mental wellbeing
The opportunity to make new connections and nurture existing ones through social and networking events.
Evidence-based approaches for system change
A respectful, real, and welcoming environment

FMHC 2026 will explore a wide spectrum of challenges and solutions across the frontline, including trauma healing, organisational change, culturally responsive care, peer support models, identity, family wellbeing and more.

When you register for FMHC26, you're investing in much more than just a conference. You're stepping into an experience designed to support your professional growth, personal wellbeing, and sector-wide impact.

Here’s what’s included with your registration:

Access to all keynote presentations, concurrent sessions, and workshops
Discounted accommodation rates at RACV Royal Pines Resort
Full access to the FMHC wellbeing program — return to work recharged and refocused
Complimentary 5-star catering across both days, including all meals and tea/coffee service
Entry to exclusive networking functions with delegates from across Australia and beyond
A 5-star venue experience designed for connection, comfort, and clarity
Access to the official conference app
Complete online access to all audio and video content for 30 days post-event (excludes workshops)
Printed conference materials
Over 10 hours toward CPD points
A personalised certificate of attendance
The opportunity to showcase your organisation
Your chance to win great delegate prizes

Your submission should align with the 2026 conference theme:

Holding the Line Together: Advancing Frontline Mental Health Through Connection, Culture, and Leadership

We welcome proposals across the following topic areas:

Click to expand the topics below.

Together in the Trenches: Strengthening Inter-Agency and Cross-Sector Collaboration for Frontline Mental Health
- The trauma we share: case studies from bushfires, COVID, floods and other domestic responses
- Cross-sector coordination that works: practical models for improving mental health outcomes
- Psychological safety across disciplines: building trust, respect and support under pressure
- Training together, coping together: joint simulations and wellbeing strategies that make a difference
- Navigating culture clash: how diverse services, sectors and support roles can better understand each other
- Bridging the gap: enabling external service providers and communities to provide informed support to the frontline towards collective care: sustainable structures for long-term inter-agency wellbeing
The Ripple Effect: Family, Parenting, Caregiving & Relationships
- Frontline families under pressure: how shift work, trauma, and unpredictability shape home life
- From stress to strength: innovations in family resilience and post-traumatic growth
- When frontline workers are caregivers too: navigating the dual demands of service and family life
- Partners and children as part of the team: co-designing inclusive, family-centred support models
- Making it work: balancing co-parenting, relationships, and wellbeing in high-intensity roles
- New directions in support: showcasing emerging research, programs, and policies that meet families where they are
- Intergenerational impact: helping children understand and process trauma in developmentally appropriate ways
Stronger Systems, Thriving Teams: Transforming Organisational Practice for Frontline Wellbeing
- Changing the system, not the person: building psychologically safe, learning-oriented, and restorative cultures
- Organisational wellbeing audits: using data to assess and improve workplace mental health
- Navigating moral tensions in complex systems: practical tools for leaders and teams
- Co-design in action: engaging frontline voices in developing meaningful mental health strategies
- Workforce design for wellbeing: planning and structures that prevent burnout and system overload
- Culturally responsive care: embedding faith, spirituality, and cultural identity in organisational mental health strategies
- Future-proofing the frontline: Supporting students, trainees and early-career workers across the professional lifecycle
Innovative Approaches for Healing Trauma: Translating Research into Impact
- Polyvagal theory in action: How polyvagal-informed practices are being applied in trauma recovery for frontline workers
- Lifestyle and metabolic interventions: Evidence-based insights on nutrition, sleep, inflammation, and movement as adjuncts in trauma treatment
- Neuromodulation with rigour: Exploring the science and application of TMS, neurofeedback, and other emerging technologies - what works, for whom, and when?
- From research to results: Innovations in trauma treatment with demonstrated impact across clinical and operational settings
- Psychedelic-assisted therapy - hope or hype?: Clarifying the evidence, risks, and current status of psychedelic treatments in trauma care
- Integrative care models with evidence: Combining medical, psychological, and alternative supports into person-centred, research-informed care plans
- Creative expression as recovery: Storytelling, art, and creativity in trauma healing - evaluating their therapeutic and cultural value
- Myth-busting new modalities: What the research really says about "emerging" treatments - and what still needs to be proven
Prevention, Intervention & Postvention: Rethinking Suicide in Frontline Settings
- Shifting the dial: evidence of progress in suicide prevention across frontline contexts
- After a suicide: postvention strategies that support individuals, families, and teams
- Lived experience insights into suicide recovery and prevention
- Peer-led and culturally competent approaches to suicide support
- Organisational learning from loss: system-level responses to suicide and self-harm
- The ripple effect of suicide: acknowledging and addressing broader impacts on families, clinicians, communities, and care systems
- Gender-specific risks: What new research is telling us about suicide risk in women, and the role of reproductive and hormonal health
- Addressing Pre-Existing Mental Health Conditions in the Frontline
Enhancing Peer Power: Integrated, Scalable and Safe Peer Support Models
- Professionalisation of peer support: tensions, opportunities and boundaries
- Integrating peer officers, chaplains, and clinicians: Building a united model
- Supervision, support and safeguards: caring for peer supporters
- Peer support across disciplines: collaborative networks across states, jurisdictions and disciplines
- Inclusive peer programs: LGBTQIA+, culturally diverse, neurodivergent peer models
- Scaling peer support during large-scale events and disasters
- Measuring what matters: evaluating outcomes, impact and effectiveness of peer support
- Innovations and success stories from leading peer support models
- Expanding reach: peer support models for volunteer responders and spontaneous teams
Tools for the Frontline: Practical Skills for Mental Health and Wellbeing
- Communication skills for peer, team, and one-on-one support conversations
- Tools for self-assessment and spotting early warning signs
- Building your own plan: mental health planning and safety strategies for high-pressure roles
- When it’s not trauma – but still not okay: Practical tools for managing anxiety, depression, and alcohol misuse in frontline settings
- Managing vicarious trauma, emotional overload, and dysregulation
- Boundaries that work: protecting energy without disconnecting from others
- Burnout tools: recognising, preventing, and recovering from burnout
- Leading with care: helping leaders hold wellbeing conversations and respond to staff needs
- Building mental health capability from day one: Supporting students and trainees for success and resilience
Potentially Traumatic Events and Cumulative Trauma
- Understanding the difference: acute vs chronic trauma in frontline roles
- Psychological First Aid for traumatic events
- Rebuilding after high-impact events: personal, team, and community strategies
- Early intervention for cumulative stress build-up
- Supporting teams through collective grief and loss
- Organisational responsibility following critical events
- Off-duty incidents and their impact
The Mental Health Multiplier: Leadership That Lifts the Frontline
- Building mental health capability and literacy in leaders
- Developing trauma-informed leadership capabilities
- Peer-led leadership mentoring: creating psychologically safe leadership pipelines
- Managing embitterment, burnout, and moral injury in leadership roles
- Decision fatigue and leadership exhaustion: sustaining leader wellbeing
- Aligning leadership values and actions in times of moral complexity
- The role of emotionally intelligent leadership in culture transformation
Expanding the Conversation: From Moral Injury to Embitterment
- Moral injury in focus: from ethical exposure to the burden of judgement-based decisions
- Owning the call: how life-and-death choices impact identity and mental health
- Understanding embitterment: emerging evidence on workplace injustice and moral distress
- Preventing moral harm: shaping cultures through leadership, supervision, and training
- Systemic repair: what organisational responses to moral injury should look like
- Embedding moral resilience: preparing workers for ethical complexity
- Treatment and recovery: narrative, moral repair, and emerging psychotherapies
Burnout, Grief, and Grit: Frontline Mental Health in an Era of Climate Crisis
- Responding to repeated disasters: cumulative trauma and burnout in climate-affected roles
- The long road to recovery: supporting mental health during extended disaster aftermaths
- Eco-anxiety and vicarious environmental grief: the emotional toll of frontline exposure
- Adapting mental health supports to climate realities: what’s needed as disasters escalate
- Innovation on the ground: emerging tools and programs addressing climate-driven fatigue
- Anticipating the future: workforce resilience planning for worsening climate scenarios
- Learning from lived experience: insights from frontline responders in climate-impacted regions
Stigma, Identity, and Meaning Making: Challenges and Strengths
- Unpacking stigma in frontline professions: barriers to help-seeking
- Addressing the “tough it out” mindset: shifting cultures through vulnerability and connection
- Storytelling for stigma reduction: lived experience perspectives
- Creating psychologically safe spaces for vulnerability and strength
- Finding meaning in service: how purpose, pride and belonging protect mental health
- Making sense of suffering: how meaning-making supports recovery and growth
- When identity is challenged: supporting transition and recovery when frontline roles change

The FMHC Conference Committee

Dr Tara J Lal AFSM

Lived experience researcher | Suicide, trauma and growth | Former Firefighter

**Learn More**

James Maskey

Director of Government Relations, Queensland Alliance for Mental Health

Learn More

Tony ODay — Tony O'Day AFSM

Assistant Chief Fire Officer, Interoperability, Fire Rescue Victoria

**Learn More**

Colonel Jacqueline Costello

CSC, Command Psychologist, Forces Command, Australian Army

**Learn More**

Dr Sadhbh Joyce (MClinNeuroPsych, PhD, MAPS)

Senior Psychologist & Co-Founder, Mindarma & External Fellow, The Black Dog Institute/UNSW

**Learn More**

Senior Sargeant Todd Best — Senior SargeantTodd Best

Senior Operational Support Officer, Financial and Cyber Crime Group, Queensland Police Service

**Learn More**

Matthew Hill

Lecturer - Paramedicine, University of the Sunshine Coast

**Learn More**

Dr Henry Bowen

Senior Research Officer, Military and Emergency Services Health Australia

**Learn More**

Meg Power

Client Services Manager, Ambulance Tasmania and Department of Police, Fire and Emergency Management (AT & DPFEM)

**Learn More**

Ms Pip Weiland CSC — Pip Weiland CSC

Executive Director Strategic Advisory Group, Mental Health and Wellbeing Branch, Department of Defence

**Learn More**

Dr Buck Reed

Lecturer in Paramedicine, Charles Sturt University

**Learn More**

Andy Cullen

Founder, PTSD Resurrected Inc Charity

**Learn More**

David Wootton

Manager Mental Health Services | Safety & Wellbeing, NSW State Emergency Service - State Headquarters

**Learn More**

$ 449 + GST

Virtual

Live streaming of all keynote presenters
Live streaming of all sessions in the plenary room over two-day conference period
Virtual presentations
Complete online access to audio and visual presentations for 30 days (excluding workshop sessions)
Over 10 hours towards CPD points
Your personalised certificate of attendance

$ 1,249 + GST

In-Person | 2 Day Program

Save $300 with Early Bird. Ends 30/01/2026.

All keynote presentations
All concurrent presentations
All workshop sessions
Discounted accommodation rates
Access to conference app
5-star conference catering package
Access to exclusive networking functions
Complete online access to audio and visual presentations for 30 days post-event (excluding workshop sessions)
Printed conference materials
Over 10 hours towards CPD points
Your personalised certificate of attendance
Exposure for your organisation
Plus, chances to win great prizes!

$ 3297 + GST

In-Person Group of 3

Save $450 with Early Bird. Ends 30/01/2026.

All keynote presentations
All concurrent presentations
All workshop sessions
Discounted accommodation rates
Access to conference app
5-star conference catering package
Access to exclusive networking functions
Complete online access to audio and visual presentations for 30 days post-event (excluding workshop sessions)
Printed conference materials
Over 10 hours towards CPD points
Your personalised certificate of attendance
Exposure for your organisation
Plus, chances to win great prizes!

HAVE A TEAM OF 4 OR MORE?

Fill in this form to receive a personal call from our team with your best possible rate.

I've found everything relevant and insightful. As a former paramedic with PTSD a lot of the content intensely resonates with me.

Fascinating presenters, even for topics that weren't necessarily ones I would choose to view they opened my mind to alternative areas.

A very engaged group of passionate delegates, stimulating speakers and lovely venue. Great to see the focus on Moral Injury as well!

The event was run smoothly and was very engaging for all. The talks were the perfect length and keeping you engaged, and the overall experience was brilliant.

The conference provided an excellent opportunity to make new connections and find out about the latest research.  I learnt about a number of potential research opportunities for myself that I was not aware existed.