Background to Establishing WARRI

This program tour resulted in a meeting with the federal Minister for Health and senior advisor on 25th June, 2018 who suggested that the programs were amongst the most innovative in Australia. The primary outcome of this meeting with the federal Minister and his staff, was a recommendation and encouragement to establish an independent research institute, which would collaborate with Universities, and enable applications for funding to carry out program evaluation research, and establish best practice guidelines in the context of Australia across these vulnerable populations.

Prior to WARRI establishment (Jul 2016 – Dec 2018), all program evaluation research activity, including research design, conduct, and dissemination, was fully funded through In-Kind contributions from a number of institutions including: PsychMed through program funding, Flinders University, the University of South Australia, the University of Adelaide, the University of Technology Sydney, and the University of the Sunshine Coast.

During these first two and a half years, PsychMed formed an independent research and ethics committee to oversee research proposals, implementation, reporting & dissemination, adopting the National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines for approval processes. This committee consisted of: Professor Jacques Metzer (Committee Chair), Professor Anna Chur-Hansen, Professor Paul Delfabbro, Dr Matthew Smout, Dr Quentin Black, and Professor Reg Nixon.

The Committee oversaw a number of significant research endeavours including; the establishment of research evaluating the Australian Matrix program trial, including ethics, consents, methodology, adaptation, and ongoing dissemination of research; the oversight of the Australian first trial of the cognitive processing therapy (CPT); the development and implementation of the alcohol complex clients relapse prevention group (RPG); implementation of the Animal Assisted Therapy program, including the formation of an independent animal ethics committee appointed for the purpose of the AAT program involving animal welfare, RSPCA, and PsychMed staff; the implementation of the SAIGHS gambling treatment program, including the oversight of research evaluation methodology & protocol development.