Associate Professor Melissa Petrakis is Group Director of Social Work Innovation, Transformation and Collaboration in Health (SWITCH) Research Group, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University. She has worked in mental health services for over 30 years, as a clinician, service manager, then practice-based researcher. She has authored over 100 publications and is sought after to mentor projects internationally. In 2016 she was awarded The Tom Trauer Evaluation and Research Award, at Australian and New Zealand TheMHS Awards, acknowledging excellence in her approach to research, championing co-design, co-production and co-authorship, with clinicians, people with lived experience of mental illness and families. A/Prof Petrakis is editor of textbook: Petrakis, M. (2023). Social Work Practice in Health: An introduction to contexts, theories and skills. She brought together 27 clinicians, sharing expertise to enhance student knowledge/preparedness for practice. The second edition (Routledge) includes new chapters/focus on equity, diversity and courageous practice in neoliberal contexts.

Associate Professor Petrakis was Chair of the Board of Tandem, the Victorian state mental health carers peak body, during the pandemic years. She was a member of Mental Health Carers Australia (MHCA) when, as a collective of state board chairs of peaks, they advocated for the Commonwealth Government to fund a national carer peak, in addition to funding a consumer peak, for people with lived and living experience of mental health challenges and psychosocial distress.

In Victoria, the advocacy of Associate Professor Petrakis contributed to Recommendation 31 in the final report of Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System – the establishment of eight Mental Health and Wellbeing Connect centres across Victoria. Associate Professor Petrakis facilitated opportunities for carers across the state to speak with commissioners during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020, and outline their own wellbeing needs beyond their caring roles. Her commitment to making sure that carers and families were respected as partners in the support they provide mental health consumers was instrumental to the Commission’s rethink of how information and support are delivered, moving from providing support to carers via the consumer’s service provider only, to establishing carer wellbeing centres that provide support and information to carers in their own right. 

Associate Professor Petrakis holds 3 ministerial appointments: Interdisciplinary Clinical Advisory Group (ICAG), DoH, MHWB, Victorian Government; Lived Experience Strategic Partnership (LESP), DoH, MHWB, Victorian Government; Loddon-Mallee Interim Regional Body (IRB), DoH, MHWB, Victorian Government. She is a member of the ALIVE International Scientific Advisory Committee, and the ALIVE Lived-Experience Research Collective. She is a founding member of the Australian Family Carer Research Advocacy Network (FaCRAN), a member of Prato International Research Collaborative for Change in Parent and Child Mental Health. She is on the Editorial Board for both Research on Social Work Practice journal and Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development.

Through a grant from the National Mental Health Commission,  the National Mental Health Consumer & Carer Forum commissioned Associate Professor Petrakis and Caroline Walters of SWITCH to co-create an evaluation  of the impact of the COVID-19  pandemic on the experiences and mental health and wellbeing of family, carers and supporters of people with mental health challenges – one of ten vulnerable populations identified in the National Mental Health Pandemic Plan. In conjunction with representatives of national and state mental health organisations, they conducted co-designed and co-produced online focus groups with 73 family carers, and a survey with 101 family carers and supporters, representing diverse communities and ages. The researchers made 10 recommendations to government as a result, including a short-term recommendation to fund available and responsive carer respite, and longer-term recommendations to establish carer hubs and suicide prevention services in recognition of the acute and cumulative stress and distress that carers can experience. The research has since been recognised with two awards, including an Australia and New Zealand Social Work and Welfare Education and Research award in 2023 and a TheMHS Learning Network Mental Health Services Award in 2024.