Collaborative Practice Centre

Collaborative Practice Ready Curriculum Framework

Healthcare is a team effort, and effective care depends on collaboration across diverse professions. Whether you're a student, educator, or health professional, we develop collaborative curricula that promote interprofessional education and equip you to work more effectively across disciplines.

• Learn together with future teammates.
• The Ways Curriculum will provide students from diverse health and social care programs with structured opportunities to learn about, from, and with each other.
• Students will engage in interprofessional learning through guided online learning, authentic simulation-based workshops and workplace learning.

Collaborative Practice Curriculum Framework

Health and Social Care Roles

Discover What These Professionals Do

Healthcare is a team effort, and effective healthcare relies on collaboration between professionals from diverse fields. Understanding the roles of different professionals is key to delivering the best care for patients and communities. Our Roles in Practice video series offers a glimpse into the diverse professionals within health and social care. Developed in collaboration with our programs, these videos feature practitioners and educators sharing what they do and uncovering aspects of their work that others may not commonly know.

Whether you're a future or current student, an educator, or health and social care professional looking to deepen your understanding and learn about, from and with others, these short, engaging videos provide valuable insights into the many roles shaping healthcare.

Partners

In addition to the Schools and Departments of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, the Collaborative Practice Centre works closely with key partners and collaborators;

Melbourne Teaching Health Clinics

Our work with MTHC aims to embed collaborative practice in action across their network of student clinics.

Centre for Digital Transformation of Health

Work with the Centre for Digital Transformation of Health revolves around working with ealth professionals, clinicians, IT professionals, and interprofessional health students to tackle real-life problems in healthcare.  A succesful two-day education event called “Transforming Problems to App Prototypes (TPAP) – Healthcare Hackathon” was held on November 18^th and 19^th of 2023.

“Thank you so much for planning and running this hackathon! It was such a fantastic experience that showed me another world of combining two things I am interested in. I am now more confident in reading and looking up projects related to health apps because of it. Thanks for also connecting us with a diverse group of professionals, it was fantastic meeting new people from different programs.” – Hackathon participant

Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre Alliance

Our work with VCCC focuses on the development of evidence-informed approaches to preparing cancer consumers to lead, engage and collaborate to advance cancer care across Victoria and beyond

About the CPC

The Collaborative Practice Centre (CPC) was established as a formal entity in late 2023, aggregating and advancing a decade of local work on interprofessional practice in health care. The CPC provides the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences and its numerous health partners with leadership, high level implementation support, and research expertise into collaborative practice in health and social care.

Our team has experience in both private and public healthcare environments and comprises a diverse team of professionals from various health backgrounds including audiology, dentistry, medicine, nursing, optometry, pharmacy, physiotherapy, psychology, public health, social work and speech pathology.

Our Team

Kim Allison

Acting Director

A physiotherapist by training, Kim is a healthcare educator and researcher working to support integration of interprofessional curriculum across the School of Health Sciences.

kim.allison@unimelb.edu.au

Walter Eppich

Lead - Research

Walter builds on his clinical background as a paediatric emergency doctor and studies the contribution of workplace talk and team interactions to collaborative learning and team performance.

w.eppich@unimelb.edu.au

Charlotte Denniston

Associate Professor Collaborative Practice (Partnerships)

Charlotte is a physiotherapist, health professions educator and researcher. She is interested in the individual, interpersonal and collective actions to build person-centred, collaborative and reflective healthcare professionals.

charlotte.denniston@unimelb.edu.au

Carolyn Cracknell

Lead - Work Integrated Learning partnerships

Carolyn draws from her roles as an educator and physiotherapist, working collaboratively to design for authentic interprofessional learning experiences in the workplace.

carolyn.cracknell@unimelb.edu.au

Peter Carew

Acting Lead - Work Integrated Learning (WIL)

A clinical audiologist by training, Peter builds on his background in tertiary education to support the development of individual and team collaborative practice in health.

pcarew@unimelb.edu.au

Neville Turner

Centre Manager

Neville is a registered and practicing optometrist with 32 years experience in public eyecare as a practitioner, as well as holding operational and service development responsibilities. 

nwturner@unimelb.edu.au

Sarah Large

First Nations Health Lead

Sarah is a proud Biripi Worimi woman and physiotherapist who is passionate about developing curriculum and systems to better address the health needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

sarah.large@unimelb.edu.au

Julia Paxino

Lecturer, Research Fellow

Julia has a clinical background as a physiotherapist and is a healthcare researcher. She is passionate about shaping more effective interprofessional collaboration in healthcare.

j.paxino@unimelb.edu.au

Rachael Ferguson

Curriculum and Communications Officer

Rachael is a digital designer and health promoter who implements communication strategies and supports the development of educational materials.

rlf@unimelb.edu.au

Grace Liu

Project Administration Intern

Grace is a third-year Bachelor of Science Student majoring in Biotechnology interested in public health policy and law. She is working as the current CPC project administration and service improvement intern via the Students@Work program.

grace.liu.2@unimelb.edu.au

Collaborative Practice Coordinators

Our Collaborative Practice Coordinators hold shared roles in the CPC and within the Faculty’s departments. They play a critical role in identifying opportunities and embedding our collaborative programs across the faculty.

Tamara Clements

Collaborative Practice Coordinator - MMS

A physiotherapist and health professions educator, Tamara has experience in curriculum development, leadership and inclusive, student-centred medical training.

tclem@unimelb.edu.au

Niki Lillibridge

Collaborative Practice Coordinator - SHS

Niki is an Intensive Care nurse with research interests in interprofessional communication and collaborative practice in health care. She coordinates the Graduate Certificate in Intensive Care and assists in the implementation of interprofessional curriculum across the School of Health Sciences.

niki.lillibridge@unimelb.edu.au

Campbell McKay

Collaborative Practice Coordinator - MSPGH

Campbell is a curriculum developer and education designer who specialises in global and public health education contexts. He is currently working on implementing interprofessional education for current and future Master of Public Health students.

campbell.mckay@unimelb.edu.au

Claire Mustchin

Collaborative Practice Coordinator - MDS

Claire is a Senior Lecturer in Dental Public Health at the Melbourne Dental School and is responsible for coordinating the health promotion subject in the second year of the Bachelor of Oral Health program.

claire.mustchin@unimelb.edu.au

Project Officers

Our project officers work closely with kay partners of the CPC and MDHS to advance student's clinical placements.

Thomas Connell

Project Officer

Thomas is a mental health accredited social worker with broad practice experience across several fields and sectors.

thomas.connell@unimelb.edu.au

Denise Ho

Project Officer

Denise, with an MBA and background in project management, has an interest in process improvements to enhance stakeholder experiences.

denise.ho@unimelb.edu.au

Victoria Rayner

Project Officer

Vicky brings with her a background in both project management and research within the field of youth mental health.

victoria.rayner@unimelb.edu.au

Indi Swan

Project Officer

Indi has a background in clinical dietetics and project management, with skills in stakeholder engagement and governance.

indi.swan@unimelb.edu.au

Simone Stahli Quinn

Project Officer

Simone is from the Department of Psychiatry and has over 15 years’ experience in tertiary education, with expertise in student wellbeing, program design and mental health curriculum development.

sstahli@unimelb.edu.au

Research Officers

Our researchers hold an important role in contributing to national and international learning and teaching practice through research projects, grants, awards, conference presentations and publications.

Nicola Redhouse

New Horizons Fellow

Nicola is Lecturer in Publishing and Editing in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne.

Anisha Sandhu

Graduate researcher

Anisha brings her experience as a pharmacist and educator to her doctoral research in medical education, where she explores how leadership is taught and experienced within undergraduate healthcare education.

anisha.sandhu.1@unimelb.edu.au

Sonia Shaikh

New Horizons Fellow

Sonia is a social scientist who works on human-AI interaction and its impact on judgement & decision-making, communication, and performance in individual, team, and organisational settings.

Honorary Staff

Paul Eleftheriou

Honorary Staff

Paul is a highly experienced medical administrator and healthcare leader with a strong background in governance, strategy, and clinical leadership across public and private health sectors.

Michael Fischer

Honorary Staff

Michael is an organisational culture and leadership expert at Monash University. He has over 30 years’ experience as a strategic leadership coach, business school academic, and clinical director. He was previously an NHS consultant psychotherapist in the UK.

Jonas Nordquist

Honorary Staff

Jonas is a medical educationalist and the associate residency director at the Karolinska University Hospital. He is a Senior Researcher at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

Anne Schempp

Honorary Staff

Anne is a distinguished leader in health professions education with over 15 years of experience in teaching, curriculum development, and academic leadership, specialising in interprofessional collaboration and healthcare workforce development.

Other Staff and Committee

Collaborative Champions

Our collaborative champions include staff, who while not directly within the CPC, have held roles with us and continue to advocate for collaborative healthcare.

IPEP Committee

Our work is supported by the Faculty's Interprofessional Education and Practice Committee. This group is comprised of staff and students representatives from throughout the Faculty, and meets bimonthly to guide and support all interprofessional education curriculum activities within the Faculty.

Interprofessional Education and Practice Committee